Crack the Shutters
by Ish Cat
Summary: Edward has just learned that he had cancer. Him and Bella decide to go on a cross-country road-trip to expreience everything he hasn't yet expreienced...with a few little bumps along the way. AH EPOV. M for a reason!
1. Learning to Fall

_Dear Sweetheart,_

_I know you must hear this story a lot, but I wanted to write one for you so you would never forget that I love you. I'm making some videos of The Trip, again, so you don't forget how much I love you even though I have to miss most of your life. You don't know how sad it makes me that I can't be there. Never for a second think that I didn't love you. I still love you as a matter a fact…_

Rarely have I really hated the world, but I think this is one of those terrible moments that makes you really wonder: is life _that_ great?

I mean, sometimes you're soaring through life, and you are happy because life is great; what more could you want? You have a girlfriend that loves you, you are planning on marrying her, having babies with her, living in a nice four bedroom house just outside a city that you adore, and even maybe having a dog.

But right now, I feel like giving shit to that wonderful person. I would never even think about giving her shit before, but right now I'm at my wit's end. I just received the terrible news that I am dying. I have only about twelve months to live, and guess what she's worried about?

She is worried about our schedules for next year. She is worried about moving after we finish our masters and me having to go off to med school. She is complaining about wanting to be married and having children when I'm in med school, (even though I have told her countless times before, I don't want to be a dad while I'm still in school.)

She had been cooking when I got home. This was a typical Bella activity during finals. She stirred the pot full of something delicious while reading a book next to the stovetop, wearing sweat pants and an old shirt that made her look just like the picture perfect poor college student.

I walked into the bedroom to change quickly. When I came out, she was in the same spot as I had last seen her.

"Bella," I said, walking into the kitchen and up behind her. I didn't know if I should break my news to her before, during, or after dinner. Depends on when she feels happy; but then again, I might as well tell her when she is in a bad mood…why ruin a happy moment?

"Hey," she said absent-mindedly. I kissed her shoulder, folded the corner of the book she was reading over, and closed the book quickly so I could have all of her attention.

"Hey! I was studying! I know the earth revolves around you, but you can't just close my book and expect me to have a quickie with you before dinner! And you didn't do the dishes this morning before class like you promised, so you don't get any until you do them!" She ranted. I smiled sadly and thought about how much I would miss the life we would never get to have.

I could imagine her scolding me for letting our kids have a cookie before dinner, or her and I making more babies. Us buying a house, buying cars, buying fucking groceries I would even miss.

I kissed her cheek and went to do the dishes quietly. For some reason, my temper cooled off when I heard her speak. She was Jesus and I was a storm.

We were sitting down at the table, eating, and Bella was explaining to me some scientific process I mastered a while ago in biology. It was the way she learned, by explaining things to make sure she knew them. I had them down pat and could spot a mistake. She was rambling and eating at the same time, a cute quirk she had. I just nodded and ate my dinner quietly.

"So, then in telophase it breaks into two new daughter cells," she said and smiled, glad she finished explaining mitosis to me. I clapped for her and she laughed. "I'm so glad my day of studying has paid off," she joked. "How were your classes today? Why did that one run late and you couldn't meet me for lunch?"

"Ummm, I didn't go to classes today," I started, deciding to go headfirst into the conversation. Bella stopped chewing and looked up, confused. But this wasn't some sort of light conversation. This wasn't me telling her we had roaches or that I was going to buy some milk instead of water for lunch tomorrow. No, this was the "I'm going to die" talk. They didn't teach this one in any class. They didn't prepare me for this possibility.

I tried to speak; I swear I did, but it was delayed, not coming straight out of my mouth. Finally I managed to get out a quick sentence to postpone the question a little longer. "I went to get some test results from the doctor's office." I said lamely. Bella set down her fork and swallowed.

I hated to do this to her. I saw the worry in her eyes that was always there when someone mentioned the hospital. It was a fear many people had- just a natural instinct that kicks in that tells them this might be bad.

"What kind of test results?" She asked. I looked down at the table and Bella grabbed my hand. "You don't have some STD or something, do you?" She asked with a little panic in her voice. Although I was slightly offended, I knew this was only rational thinking and the fact that I was wishing it was an STD made it slightly funny and I chuckled, much to her dismay.

"No, I wish," I said and she kissed my cheek for me to continue. "No, the doctor was giving me the results of some extra tests he ordered after my last physical." I said very slowly. Bella froze for a minute; I could feel the muscles in her hand and arm tense up, but quickly squeezed my hand for me to go on. "I have cancer," I said and then I looked up at her, seeing if I could gage her feelings.

She took a deep breath, pushing back tears and nodded. "Did you talk to them about chemo?" She asked, looking down at her food.

"Yes, but…" I started hesitantly. I didn't want to just whip the next part out at her, but I knew there wasn't a way around it; she was going to have to find out sooner or later. "I decided against treatment," she looked up at that and had a murderous look on her face. "Love, I know that seems stupid right now, but… I have a terminal cancer. I may only have a year to live. I don't want to spend my last year in a hospital, being poked with needles, and throwing up. I want to be able to enjoy my last months as much as I can."

She was staring at me, shaking her head. "No, you can't. You're only twenty-two. Only teens and old people get terminal cancer," she replied, staring down at her food, deep in concentration. "You can't get terminal cancer." She stated again. She had this pained look in her eyes, the light temporarily leaving them, begging me to let her believe this if only for a night.

"But I do have cancer, love," I said after a minute. I couldn't lie to her like that. As much as I selfishly wanted what she said to be true, I couldn't make myself lie to her. I leaned in to hug her. She jumped up and grabbed my plate.

"You don't have cancer," she reiterated, giving me one last look before quickly walking back into the kitchen.

I sighed as Bella got out of the shower where she had been since I told her. She had set the plates down and gone straight into the shower. I sat on the bed waiting for her.

I heard her turn on the hair dryer in the bathroom. She would be a while. I sighed again.

When she did come out of the bathroom, she went straight to bed. All the lights in the apartment were turned off except my bedside lamp. She turned on her side, facing away from me, with the covers pulled up to her shoulders.

I slowly scooted over to her until I was spooning with her. She ignored me. I pulled the covers down slowly until they were down by her waist. I kissed her shoulder and made my way up, past her shoulder, onto her neck, up her neck, and started to kiss right behind her ear.

She moved slightly to give me better access to the spot. I started my trail of kisses over her face and made it to her mouth, kissing it briefly. Her eyes were still closed and she made no move to recapture my lips. I kissed her cheek and rubbed her arm with my hand.

"Love, come on," I whispered on her mouth. She lifted her head up a little bit and I moved the rest of the way to her lips, kissing her. She kissed back this time, her body turning so she was on her back. Her hands went into my hair, pulling me closer.

I shifted my body so I was over her and she spread her legs a little on instinct. I felt her tongue trace my bottom lip and I opened my mouth happily. I didn't fight; I just went along with whatever she wanted.

She pushed me and I rolled over, her rolling on top of me. I loved when she took control. She scooted her hips up until she was almost sitting on me. She scooted around a little and I groaned into her mouth. I felt her smile and she kept on wiggling, making me harder by the second.

I grabbed the bottom of her shirt and tugged it off. I saw she chose not to wear a bra to bed. After letting me appreciate her upper half for a few seconds, Bella leaned forward quickly, kissing the spot right under my ear.

I groaned and felt her hands travel down my chest and push down my boxers while I did the same to her. I felt her moan as she sat back down right on me. She swiveled and ground her hips, sending me over the edge in a matter of minutes, her right behind me.

She collapsed on me and I rubbed her back and kissed her forehead, telling her how much I loved her over and over again until I felt so tired, my eyes just couldn't stay open any longer.


	2. My Beautiful Rescue

**Disclaimer: I own nothing; this is all Stephanie's Genius!**

I woke up to hear typing and I looked over to see Bella wearing my shirt from last night, typing away on her laptop while sitting up in bed, my head almost directly behind her back so I couldn't see the screen. I spent a blissful minute just watching her. She was so beautiful, hair curling softly from being slept on, skin pale and eerily perfect, and the face of a gorgeous angel.

"What do we do now?" I asked finally. I felt completely over whelmed. She smiled half-heartedly as she turned to look at me.

"I was thinking while you were asleep," she said, smiling. I nodded for her to continue. "I have this whole thing planned. We take a road trip," she said in an unsure voice, watching my eyes to see my reaction. I nodded again for her to continue. "I can take the next year off and in that time we can travel across America! We can drive from here to the East coast and then we'll just make our way around and we end at your parents' house."

I smiled at her. "The only problem I have with that is the fact you have to take a year off of school," I said, sitting up on my elbow. She smiled back at me, but soon her smile faded.

"Your parents?" she said again. I frowned thinking about them. They didn't know about our predicament. "What do we tell them? That we just decided to take a road trip? They wouldn't like that we are taking a year off school, and they would flip if we said that you were . . ." she paused, "if we told them. They wouldn't let us do this," she said.

"I think they don't need to know. We can just wait to tell them near the end. Along with everybody else for the matter. None of them need to worry about me until we've have had our fun for the last time," I told her, taking her hand and kissing the back of it.

She nodded and thought about it the whole time I talked and frowned. "I still think it's cruel to not tell them you're dying, and then we just tell them we are leaving for a year to travel around the country."

"They'll understand," I said, trying to be comforting. My plan was to not tell anyone. I just wanted to live my last year as normally as possible and a road trip with my girlfriend seemed to be the best way to do that.

She still had a worried look on her face, like she still wasn't sure about anything. Who could blame her? I was pretty sure this was normal, but I didn't want to push her into telling talking until she was ready.

"I know, but we need to get to work packing for the trip," she said and she got out of bed in a flurry or movement, running around trying to find the suitcases.

"Love, calm down. You still have finals in two days, why don't you go and study for them. I can pack and schedule all the hotels and stuff. We can talk to my parents another time," I said, trying to calm her down. I hoped she couldn't tell I was trying to put off telling my parents.

She took a deep breath and nodded. I was glad she was calming down. I sighed and got out of bed in search of my boxers and then for the suitcases.

-------------

I came out of our bedroom to find her on the couch, the books all around her, but she wasn't studying. She was curled up. A movie was playing. I watched for a minute and instantly recognized it. The movie was one of the first ones we watched together: The Shop Around the Corner. It's a classic.

I remembered her saying it was completely cheesy, and a total romantic comedy at its worst. I told her it had its good aspects. I like the movie except for the ending. The ending is really not that great.

I sat down by her head, lifting it up and placing it in my lap. She was sound asleep like I expected because she hadn't slept in at least 24 hours. The movie was almost over. It was to the scene where everyone was leaving for Christmas, going home with nice Christmas bonuses, and Klara and Alfred are staying behind, talking about her 'boyfriend'.

I smiled. Our first kiss had been during this film. Presently, I kissed her forehead and she sleepily opened her eyes. She smiled at me, rubbing her eyes. She didn't make a move to sit up or break eye contact with me.

"I had a really bad dream," she sighed, still smiling. I furrowed my brow. What could be worse than this? I knew of nothing.

"What was it?" I asked and I smoothed her hair out over my lap. She kissed my thigh, smiling.

"You got cancer. You were going to leave me," she said. I took a deep breath. What do I tell her? This is normal to be in denial, but how do you get them out of denial? You always hear people talking about how hard people must have it to go into denial, and admittedly they do have it rough, but what about the people who have to get them out of denial? How do I explain to my precious Bella that it wasn't a dream? How do I explain that I was leaving her soon?

"What?" she asked, being much too observant, her eyes still staring into mine as they searched for my thoughts. I guess she saw the pain in my eyes. "It wasn't a dream," she stated, already looking crushed. "I figured it wasn't. It was worth a shot." I nodded, kissed her forehead again and we both looked towards the screen.

Klara and Alfred had their happy ending, kissing each other; finally Klara realized she loved Alfred. She loved him, he loved her back, and it was meant to be.

Are we forgetting something? I feel like we're forgetting something," she said as we hopped into the car.

"I hope not. We packed almost our whole apartment," I joked. She grimaced.

"Maybe we should do a double check?" She said.

"Honey, if we forgot something I'm sure we can just buy it on the road," I said as I backed out of the parking garage. She still had this expression on her face that I knew to be her thinking face. "Love, tell me what you're thinking."

She looked up at me and frowned. "We are forgetting something! I know it!" she said and I could tell she was about to get out of the car for another apartment check. I locked the doors and smiled at her.

Once we were about a mile from the apartment, she took in a deep breath. "Your parents!" She exclaimed. I frowned.

"No, we don't need to tell them," I said.

"Well you don't have to worry about their reaction- you will be gone," her tone changed from persistence to sadness. "I will be left behind and I would like for them to still love me after this." I could tell she was close to tears. I looked over and grabbed her hand.

"Sweetie, you don't have to talk like that. It will only upset you," I said, kissing her palm.

"It's suicide medicine," she answered. I swallowed hard.

"Fine, we can call them," I said, and dropped her hand to grab my cell from my pocket. After flipping it open, I dialed the number and shoved the phone in her hands. She quickly hung up, shutting the phone.

"We can't tell them this _over the phone_!" She yelled, throwing the phone into my lap. I rolled my eyes.

"Why not? They have to find out some way!" I yelled back the sarcasm coming out a little too much in my voice, hands flying up to accent my point.

"You don't have to do that you know!" She said. "Let's take out our frustration on the girlfriend who is just trying to help!" She said sarcastically.

"Isabella, stop acting like this. We don't need to tell them!" I said.

"Yes, we do! And take the next exit going towards Forks. We need to tell them in person," she said, crossing her arms and sitting back in her seat.

"No, we are heading towards California first," I said, stopping at a stoplight in the town before we entered the main highway. Bella was quiet for a minute, not fighting me.

"Edward," she said suddenly as she pointed across the road, "stop at that gas station, we need to fill up the car for the trip." Her voice was monotone, this conversation clearly over to her.

I sighed and nodded, pulling into the gas station. Once we stopped by the pump, I started to unbuckle and she said, "Can you go inside and get me a diet Coke? I'll fill the car up." She didn't even look me in the eye or wait for my response before she was out of the car and walking towards the pump.

I sighed and nodded again and went inside to get the diet Coke. The line was really long so I had to wait for about ten stupid minutes before paying for the stupid two-dollar Coke, only to come out and find Bella sitting in the driver's seat. I rolled my eyes.

"Bella, I thought we agreed that I was driving," I said as I got into the passenger seat.

"I don't want you to get tired. I feel wide awake for once, so why don't you sleep and I drive, and once I get tired I'll wake you up and we can switch?" she suggested. Frankly, I didn't give a damn, and this was no matter to get into an argument over, so I just nodded and went along with it.

After I reclined my seat, I was out like a light. Immediately.

I felt someone shaking me lightly and I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to push their arms away. I then felt little kisses along my jaw and I opened my eyes quickly to see Bella sitting over me, smiling weakly like she knew I was going to be mad.

I sat up slowly and saw it was almost dark out and we were in a very familiar driveway, in front of a very familiar house. I narrowed my eyes and looked towards Bella who wasn't smiling anymore, but had a completely serious face.

"I called them earlier to tell them we were coming. They said they would make us dinner. We can tell them after dinner," she explained, not looking at me anymore but at the house. I could see the living room and kitchen lights were on, and I could faintly see shadows in the kitchen, moving around making dinner.

"Do they know we're here yet?" I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.

"No."

"Then let's leave," I said, already unbuckling my seat belt, ready to get into the driver's seat.

"No! We drove all this way and we are going to tell them. They raised you! They love you! We are not going to just leave and wait until it's too late," she growled.

I was about to fight back when my mom came running out of the house and towards the car. "Edward! Bella!" she yelled excitedly.

**Reviews are better than Esme.**


	3. Damned if I do Ya Damned if I Don't

**Disclaimer: I own nothing; this is all Stephanie…minus my idea…**

"Edward, so help me god if you upset this women," Bella warned as she smiled at Esme and got out of the car. I sighed and got out of the car, went around to the trunk and grabbed our overnight bag while Bella and Esme hugged.

"Edward!" She yelled after I slammed the trunk closed. I smiled and gave her a one arm hug and held the bag in the other hand. Bella was waiting for us by the porch as when we reached it, Bella snuck her way under my arm. I kissed her forehead, a way of apology without words. She looked up at me and smiled lightly, getting that she was forgiven momentarily.

"Carlisle is on the back patio grilling the steaks. Edward, why don't you go back their and help him while Bella helps me in the kitchen?" Esme suggested as I put our bag by the stairs. I nodded and walked to the back patio.

"Dad?" I asked as I walked threw the backdoor. I saw him looking out at the night sky, having gotten dark while we were making our way inside. He looked up at me and smiled.

"How are you, son?" He asked, opening his arms for a hug. I quickly walked over and hugged him. I dodged his question, hoping he wouldn't notice.

"What are we having for dinner?" I asked, looking under the grill hood. I looked up to see Carlisle looking at me funny, but he just shook it off and answered my question, telling me it was steak. I already knew this, but I guess my changing subject skills weren't that good.

After the steaks finished, we moved inside and I had to set the table with the help of Bella, and then we started dinner. The conversation was a tad weird at first, but soon I relaxed and so did Bella, and we had a nice conversation flowing.

That was until Bella made me tense again.

"Carlisle, Esme, you guys are probably wondering why we are deciding to have dinner with you guys and drive all the way out here, right after our finals," she started.

"Oh you know we love having you guys out and it doesn't matter to us why you come," Esme said sweetly.

"We know, but-"

"I think we should clean off the table and get everything done and reconvene in the living room before we finish this conversation," I interjected, much to Bella's disappointment. Esme and Carlisle shared confused, scared glances, and then they nodded and silently started to clean up the table.

I help by rinsing the dishes and Bella put them in the dishwasher. Esme and Carlisle cleared off all the food and put it into tupperware for later. And then after everything was done, we moved into the living room, Carlisle and Esme taking the couch while Bella and I took the love seat.

I looked at Bella wearily and she tried to give me a encouraging smile, but I could tell she was unsure herself.

"Esme, Carlisle, we are taking a trip," Bella said grabbing my hand and holding onto it tightly. Esme and Carlisle looked confusedly at us.

"Across the country and other places like Europe, and this is going to be our final destination," I finished for her.

"But that will take a long time," Carlisle said, calculating it in his head. I nodded.

"We have it planned to be a total of ten months," I said. He looked at me as if I were stupid.

"That will mean taking a year off school," Carlisle said. "Taking a year off med-school is extremely difficult. It's not like you can just pick up where you left off; you have to remember things and earn respect from your teachers. Let me tell you, taking a year of will not impress anyone."

I was not happy with his lecture, but I felt sorry for him on what was to come.

"Carlisle, you haven't heard our reasoning yet," Bella defended. I could tell she wasn't happy with the way he was talking to us. She looked at me for support and I squeezed her hand. "We have just realized that life isn't forever; life is short."

Esme and Carlisle gave us blank stares, completely and utterly confused.

"Mom, Dad, I have cancer. I'm only expected to live for another year, if that." I explained, looking at the floor.

The room stood still, no one talking, no one moving, no one breathing. I looked up to see Esme silently crying. She got up and hugged me tight against her, quietly saying, "My boy, my boy".

Carlisle was in shock, not moving. Bella got up and sat next to him. I just saw that she was crying, and Carlisle had tears in his eyes. She hugged him and he started to cry. She patted his back, rocking them both back and forth.

Esme released me after what seemed like forever but was really just about ten minutes. Bella released Carlisle and he got up, hugging me. I smiled and just then realized I was crying too. We were all quite a bunch of crying idiots.

"Are you going to undergo treatment?" Esme asked, rubbing at her eyes, trying to get rid of tears.

I shook my head. I looked over at Bella and she was looking at the ground.

"We are traveling," she said simply. "We both think it would be better if he experienced the world."

"What? You could live son, or at least live longer if you do treatment," Carlisle said sternly, like it wasn't my choice whether I did the treatment or not.

"Even I did what would it buy me? Another year, maybe? But I would be inside a hospital and die in a hospital, having done nothing but make Bella miss school because she would be at the hospital with me, and making you guys both worry yourselves sick-" I said, but was cut off.

"You don't think we won't be worrying anyway?" Esme asked.

"I know you will, but this way I can spend time with Bella and not be too sick to move for the next year. I can probably make it about nine months without having to be in a hospital constantly, and I plan on traveling that nine months," I explained, looking at the floor.

"You really don't want to try treatment? Miracles do happen," Esme tried. I looked over at Bella and her eyes were glazed over, looking off into space. Her face was void of any emotion.

"No, I think this is the best. I want to live my time to the fullest," I said, looking Esme and Carlisle in the eye. They nodded and looked at the floor. I knew they were trying to find a way to convince me otherwise, but I didn't want to hear about it.

I stood up and hugged both my parents for a minute each, and then grabbed Bella's hand to take her up stairs. I grabbed our bag in one hand and walked up the stairs. She still wasn't looking at me, but she did keep a firm hold on my hand until we reached my room on the third floor.

I opened the door and looked inside to see no much had changed. The walls were a little barer, but the bed, couch, and stereo system were still the exact same as when I left. I dropped our bag on my way to the bed and plopped down on the edge of the bed, taking Bella with me.

She curled up into my side and buried her face in my shoulder. I could feel her wet face through the fabric and I rubbed her back with one hand while wiping my own tears with the other.

"Love, we should probably take a shower," I said in a low voice. She looked up and nodded. She got up slowly, and while I meant for us to take separate showers, she pulled my hand and dragged me up with her.

We make eye contact and her eyes were filled with want, love, and need. I followed her into the bathroom and she dropped my hand to turn on the shower.

She ever-so-slowly started to pull up her shirt, throwing it to the side. When I didn't move, she stepped forward and pulled on my belt buckle. She opened my pants slowly and then pulled them down even slower. I had to hold my breath as she stepped back and pulled off her own jeans. I took my shirt off in a hurry, and quickly took off my boxers and socks with it. Bella was doing the same.

I followed Bella as she entered the shower and our mouths were together before I had even gotten fully into the shower. She put her arms around my neck and pulled herself as close to me as possible.

The kiss was frantic, both of us fighting for dominance. I licked her bottom lip, and she opened her mouth gladly. She pushed her tongue into my mouth, smothering my own. I groaned as I felt her hit the wall, pushing her even more into me.

I felt her smile against the kiss and lighten up the mood of the whole kiss. It was now a playful fight, and she was winning. She circled her hips around my hips and erect member, making me groan loudly. She smiled again and kept on kissing me.

I wrapped my hands around her bottom, pulling her up. She naturally wrapped her legs around my waist. I felt her circle her hips a little more frantically, needing the friction. I smiled.

Slowly, I pushed her into the wall, supporting her weight with my own, and took my hands away from her. I slowly traced them up her sides, feeling her shudder the farther up I went. I traced random circles and patterns around her breast, finally putting all of one in my hands, squeezing it. She moaned, throwing her head back, breaking the kiss.

I kissed down her neck, and back up to right below her ear. I sucked on it, loving the sounds she was emitting. She ground on my stomach, hard. I felt the wetness, and I knew it wasn't from the shower.

I brought my other hand and dragged it down her stomach, and to her center. She moaned in pleasure as I rolled her clit around my fingers, feeling her bundle of nerves. She ground even more as I teased her with my fingers, circling her opening, feeling the wetness.

When she shook with anticipation, grinding my stomach, trying to get my fingers into her so she could feel a release. I teased her some more, making figure eights around her clit and opening. She squirmed and moaned while sounding something along the lines of a squeal. Finally, I shoved three fingers into her, making her cry out. She quickly started pumping my fingers, shifting her hips, trying to find the perfect spot. I found a rhythm opposite of hers, and forced her hips to face upwards by positioning my hand so it pushed up at her clit, making her reaction for face her hips up. She moaned in pleasure.

I pumped her a couple of times and then I got creative with my fingers, twisting them and playing with her clit with my thumb. She did the squeal sound again, biting her lip and throwing her head back. I felt her start to tighten around my fingers, so I added around finger, almost my whole hand inside her, stretching her out of later. She moaned and hit her climax. She shook for a full minute, her juices coming out of her and onto my hand.

I felt her leg weaken around me and I quickly set her down. I kneeled before her as she rested against the shower wall. I grabbed her hips and pulled her around, so she was in the shower's spray, facing the wall but me in between them.

She leaned forward, her arms supporting her against the wall, my head buried in her center. I felt it still pulsing a little as I flicked out at her bundle of nerves. She pushed forward a little at the hips. I put my hands on her hips, keeping her still. I spread her legs with my head, and started my ministrations again.

I first cleaned up the previous wreckage, tasting her sweet juices on my tongue and sliding down my throat. I heard her distinct moan as I sucked on the inside of one of her lips. I smiled and bit down a little, causing another slight buck from her hips.

I licked up her entrance before teasing her a little with my tongue. She was pushing harder with her hips, trying to create friction, and it was getting rougher by the minute. And then, she was grinding my face, panting. I pulled back and looked at her: she had her eyes closed, was biting her bottom lip and looked like she needed a release. She finally looked down at me when my head didn't return.

She saw that I was just watching her and not doing anything and did a frustrated groan. She grabbed one of my hands that was on her hip and placed it in between her folds, right on her entrance. I smiled and took my hand away, interested in what she would do.

She groaned and leaned her back up against the wall. Slowly, she spread her legs and brought her hand down to her. She played with her clit a little before pushing into herself. I smiled and took her hand away. She opened her eyes and looked at me curiously.

I got up off the floor, kissing up her body on the way, and finally caught her lips in a sensual kiss. I brought my knee between her legs, spreading them even further, and the slowly pushed into her. She moaned into my mouth. I brought my hands around again and grabbed her ass. I lifted her up and she wrapped her legs around my waist. Slowly, at first, I pushed in and out of her. She tried to speed up the pace, but I wouldn't allow it.

"Faster," she moaned, over and over again, into my mouth, and then I kissed down her neck, sucking on places and ignoring others. Finally, I pushed in and out faster. The sounds she was emitting got closer together and more frequent. I took a hand off her ass and dragged it along her hips and to her clit, playing with it. She moaned and circled her hips, making me go weak at the knees.

I started to suck on the spot right under her ear and she lost it, climaxing right onto me. She panted and shook, tightening her muscles around me, making me spill into her. Breathing hard, I leaned against her, who was leaning against the wall. She unwrapped her legs slowly and touched the floor.

After catching my breath, I pulled out of her and she started to kiss all around my face. She grabbed the soap, and held it up.

"Your turn," she said, going down to her knees. I groaned, leaned my back against the wall and was instantly hard again as I felt her warm little hands on me.

* * *

I woke up next to Bella. She was sound asleep and had a faint smile on her face. I was glad she had tricked me into coming here, even if it meant upsetting my parents and making the trip increasingly difficult.

I stretched and kissed Bella's forehead. She didn't move so I looked over at the clock. 8:09: we needed to get moving to stay on schedule so I shook her awake.

"Bella love, we need to get up," I whispered in her ear, placing soft kisses on her forehead. She yawned and smiled up at me.

"Morning," she said quietly. I smiled back and placed a chaste kiss on her lips.

"We need to get moving," I said.

"Your parents aren't going to want us to leave," Bella said, looking at the wall behind my head. I nodded.

"I don't smell Esme's cooking so maybe we beat them up and if we hurry, we can leave without saying goodbye," I said, burying my head into her neck.

"I don't think it's possible to get up before them. I don't think they slept at all," she said sadly.

"Come on Love, we have a full day of driving ahead of us," I said, ignoring her comment and pulling her up.

We got dressed quickly and walked downstairs quickly, wanting to get on the road. Esme and Carlisle were sitting in the kitchen, coffee cups in their hands. We said quick goodbyes and Esme made me promise to call every other day and Carlisle handed me some printed out pieces of paper with treatment options across the country. I grimaced but took them anyway.

Once we were back on the road, I placed my hand on Bella's thigh and she turned on some music.

**No reviews make me as sad as Esme and Carlisle. ******


	4. Chasing Cars

**Disclaimer: I own nothing, this is all Stephanie's genius!**

We had been on the road for a total of month, and we had gotten to Texas. We were at Dallas, and while I didn't know there was anything to see Bella insisted that we see Don Davis Motors because it was in one of her favorite books when she was a teen. I smiled and laughed at her.

"Do you think they will find us suspicious, walking in and taking pictures with the logo thing on the back of the cars? That won't be suspicious will it?" Bella asked, fiddling around with her camera. I just laughed.

"They will probably just find us weird," I said as we walked into the establishment.

"Hello, may I help you?" A man immediately greeted us. I smiled back at him.

"Not really, we just wanted to take a picture with one of the cars," I said. The man nodded, but did keep an eye on us as we made our way to the back of one of the cars on display.

"Sir?" Bella asked him. He walked over to us. "Could you take our picture? We want to make sure we get 'Don Davis Motors' in the picture," she instructed and we both crouched behind the car, next to the logo.

The salesman took our picture and handed us the camera back, a confused look on his face. Bella giggled and I stifled a laugh. We got back into the car we had been in for far too long and made our way back to the hotel we were staying at for the night.

I had made us dinner reservations at a restaurant in Dallas; Cadillac Bar was supposed to be one of the best Mexican restaurants in Dallas. I got ready quickly and waited patiently for Bella to get ready by watching some TV.

I hadn't really noticed a huge change in my body sense I was told, but I was getting tired more easily and getting headaches more frequently. Nothing I couldn't handle in other words.

Bella finally came out and she looked stunning. She was wearing a nice black shirt that had some lace on and she matched it with some ripped jeans and short heels. Definitely beautiful.

"You look beautiful, love," I told her as I grabbed her hand and lead her to the parking garage. She smiled weakly and I could tell something was wrong. She hadn't really thought about _it _since we left California, so I was worried that maybe I had shown signs more than I thought.

When we got to the restaurant, we were seated quickly and gave out drink orders.

"What's the matter?" I asked after we got our drinks. She looked at the floor. I didn't know whether I regretted asking, or if I really wanted to know what was wrong. I mean, I loved her and I wanted her to share her problems but if it were about the same thing that has been bothering us both for a while now, I didn't want her to bring it up and lose all chance of forgetting it for tonight.

"I don't think we should talk about it in a restaurant," she answered simply, looking everywhere but at me.

"Why not?" I asked.

"Parce que je ne veux pas en parler1," she growled in French. I didn't know why but she seemed to be thinking in French.

"Pourquio2?" I pressured her.

"Nous devrions parler l'espangol: Ce serait plus approprié3," she responded smartly.

"Entonces deja al interruptor al español4," I said. She rolled her eyes at me. I knew she didn't know Spanish, but she could probably tell what I said. I knew limited French, she knew even less Spanish.

She said something quietly. I couldn't hear her with the noise of the crowd, and I had no idea what the last word was. I heard a 'J'ai' but nothing else.

"What?" I asked.

"Let's talk about it at the hotel," she said again, looking me in the eye. I finally gave up with a sigh and nodded.

I tried to forget about it by the time our waitress brought out our dinner, but it was still nagging at me. I just ignored it and tried to make conversation. It was okay, not curing cancer conversation –no pun intended- but it did get Bella laughing.

I wanted to leave to find out what was the matter, but I didn't want to leave this lighthearted place. But we had to leave. The restaurant was closing so I pulled out her chair, grabbed her hand and lead her out to our car.

We were completely quiet in the car- something more than a little unnerving. When we finally made it to our hotel, she grabbed my hand and pulled me upstairs and locked the door behind me.

She took a deep breath and sat down on the bed.

"Do you want to take a shower, love?" I asked, pulling her towards the shower. She closed her eyes and nodded her head. I kissed her cheek and pulled her up towards the bathroom. I let go of her hand to turn on the shower, and while I was turned around, she had taken off her shirt.

She was looking in the mirror at her stomach, turning to the side and examining it from every angle. I didn't know what had gotten into her; she had always had the prettiest stomach.

I grabbed her hand to pull her closer to me, but she twisted her hand out of my grip. I could feel my eyes widen in shock. She sighed and grabbed my hand, and brought me to where I was standing right in front of her.

"J'ai un bébé," she said. I didn't know what 'bébé' was though.

She placed my hand flat against her stomach. She looked me directly in the eye, and I finally got it. I'm having a baby. I felt the steam from the shower clouding up my vision and then everything went black.

I woke up with my head in Bella's lap and on the bathroom floor. The shower had been turned off but my vision was still blurry around the edges. And my head couldn't make sense of things.

"Bella?" I asked, looking up at my love. She smiled weakly at me.

"Honey?" She asked, kissing my forehead. I wiped my hand down my face.

"Did that really happen?" I asked.

"You fainting or me being pregnant?" She asked. I just nodded. "Yes to both," she said simply. I could feel the happiness in her voice.

"You don't want to…terminate…" I said quietly.

"Of course not! How can you even think that?" She asked, clearly outraged. **(A/N: I'm pro-choice…no meanie comments about that. It's someone's right to be able to choose.)**

I lifted myself out of her lap on the ground so I could face her. My headache was going away along with my fuzzy vision.

"I'm just trying to figure out why you sound happy about this," I said honestly. She looked hurt and ready to cry, and she got up and ran out of the bathroom. I followed her, to find her curled up on the bed sniffling. "Love, come on, tell me everything so I don't interrupt with stupid, mean questions again," I said, curling around her on the bed, rubbing her arm.

"I know this sounds terrible, but when you leave, I will have a part of you," she sniffed and I felt myself tear-up. I hugged her to me hard, and she hugged me back.

"That doesn't sound terrible, it sounds human," I said and I really started to think about a baby. A real, live baby. My child. I was going to be a dad.

I was feeling great until I realized that I wasn't going to be a dad. Bella was going to be a mom, but I wouldn't be here to be a dad. "How far along are you?" I asked in a whisper.

"I don't know, I made an appointment with a doctor here in Dallas when I found out. That's what took me so long in the bathroom," she said, kissing my cheek, still smiling.

We laid like that for a while, just occasionally kissing but constantly in a hug. I smiled weakly at her and she beamed back.

"What's wrong?" Bella asked, sensing my mood.

"I'm happy for you, but I can't help but feel bad. This baby will never know his or her daddy, and you will have to raise this child all by yourself," I said all in one breath, not looking into her eyes. I didn't want to make her sad, but I knew that I just did.

"Oh Edward," she said, and she hugged me even closer to her. "I'm not going to be alone. I'll have Renee and Charlie, not to mention your whole family. I wouldn't doubt that Alice and Rosalie will take my child away from me when it gets old enough. And he or she will know their father," she said it like she really meant it.

"How?" I asked dejectedly.

"I already thought of it. You can make videos. I saw it on a TV show once: you can make a bunch of videos and I will give a video to the child for each of their birthdays or for special occasions, the child will have you whenever he or she wants," Bella told me. I looked up at her and kissed her passionately. I knew that it wouldn't really substitute for me, but at least the baby wouldn't think I abandoned him or her. And the baby would grow up around so much love- my family and Bella's.

"Let's get married!" I said excitedly.

**Reviews are better than marrying Edward….okay, maybe not, but they are close!**

1 Because I do no want to talk about it

2 Why?

3 We should speak in Spanish, it would be more appropriate.

4 Then let's speak in Spanish.


	5. Waking Up In Vegas

**Disclaimer: I own nothing; this is all Stephanie's genius. **

"What?" She asked, sitting up.

"You heard me. I bet there is a chapel around here that does that!" I said.

"I'm not getting married to you on the side of the road!" Bella said, rolling her eyes.

"Let's go to Las Vegas now!" I jumped up from the bed, and pulled on her hand. She just shook her head.

"We can't. I have an appointment, remember?" She said, pulling me back down.

"We can get married in Louisiana then. I'm sure they have plenty of little chapels," I tried. Bella looked at me funny.

"Your sister will kill us," she said finally, smiling.

"Is that a yes?" I asked, excitedly. She just nodded and smiled up at me. I laughed and picked her up, spinning us around in a circle. We laughed and she giggled.

I set back on the bed and laid next to her, my head even with her stomach. "Hi there little baby," I said, kissing her stomach. "Your mommy and daddy are going to get married!" I said and went back up to her face, kissing her with everything I had.

The next few days were odd, because we knew what we had to do, and what we wanted to do. I didn't want to stress Bella out with the baby, but traveling is what she wanted to do. She didn't act as though she had even thought about stopping our trip around America.

So I followed her to the doctor's office, wishing it were a more permanent doctor so I could feel more comfortable. We walked into a room with the sonogram machine and a bed with two chairs. Bella laid down and I took the seat next to her.

"Hello," the doctor said as she walked in. She was a middle aged women and she had a sweet face and some grey hairs in her otherwise full head of brown hair.

"Hi," Bella responded, practically glowing.

"I hear that you guys were just traveling and found out while visiting Texas," she laughed and held out her hand. "I'm Dr. Clark, and will be doing the check up." I gave her a questioning look as I shook her hand. Nurses usually did the sonogram and then the doctor came in afterwards to check and make sure everything was okay.

She grabbed her gloves and then the gel that went on Bella's stomach. "This will be cold," she warned before she squirted it out. She was finally getting the picture out and pointed to the little blob on the screen.

"It looks like a jellybean," Bella laughed as she looked at the sonogram. The doctor laughed and nodded.

"Yep, and it will for awhile. I would say you a little over a month. I would predict your due date to be somewhere around February second, but we need to get some tests done before we can tell you the official due date," Dr. Clark explained before she wiped off the gel and cleaned off the sonogram wand.

She started to walk out and I followed her, shutting the door behind me to talk to the doctor in private.

"Dr. Clark," I started as the doctor look at me. "Is there something I should be concerned about?" I asked. She gave me a confused look.

"I have cancer," I said and she took in a deep breath.

"Then you shouldn't have been able to have a child," she said, her brow furrowing. "Chemo usually damages your-" she started but I cut her off.

"I'm not taking treatment. I was told I had a year to live, so we decided to take a long vacation across America," I explained and she looked really genuinely sad for us.

"I don't know how this baby happened, but I think it's a good thing. And you should be taking treatments, they can actually work you know," she said.

I just shook my head. "No, I didn't want to spend the rest of my time here too sick to do anything."

She sighed. "She can't be traveling around the country when she gets farther along, and you shouldn't be doing that now!" She scolded. I nodded.

"I know she can't be traveling around so I think I'm going to cut the trip short. We will be back at home by her sixth or seventh month at latest," I promised. "But I still want to have check-ups along the way, so I was wondering if you could give me some good doctors for our trip," I asked. She sighed again but nodded. She gave me a few names of some good doctors for our trip that ranged from places that ranged from Las Vegas to South Carolina.

"Now, here are some numbers of the doctors so you can call ahead and schedule an appointment. Tell them that Amy Clark recommended you and tell them to give me a call before your appointment so I can fax over the information," she explained, giving me a large stack of papers.

We said our good byes to Dr. Clark and were on the road to go to Louisiana. When we finally made it to New Orleans, I got us a hotel and right now we're having dinner.

"Where do you want to get married?" I asked, looking around the old fashion looking town. I loved the look of New Orleans; they had a perfect mixture of new and old, even with all he construction still going on, it looked beautiful.

She smiled widely at me and looked down at the brochures I had grabbed from the Hostess stand. I looked at them from the other side of the table, and finally she found one that she said looked good.

It was old looking with an Edwardian feel to it. Not very big, and it did look perfect.

"I have to go find a dress," she said, looking up from the photo of the church. I nodded. "And I want you to find a tux and make the reservations," she instructed.

I leaned in to whisper in her ear, "You are incredibly sexy when you take charge," I said, kissing her right below the ear. She shuddered but I could tell she was smiling.

"We should start the videos!" she said suddenly. "I have the camera, so let's start."

I nodded as she got out her camera. She counted down to one with her hands, and I couldn't help but to smile silly at her.

"We are getting married today!" I said enthusiastically to the camera. I could see Bella's smile behind the camera. I made a grab for the camera, and she protested but let me have the camera. "Look at your beautiful mother! Positively glowing!"

"Edward," Bella complained, "people are starting to stare." She looked around the restaurant for good measure.

"Let them stare," I said and I pointed the camera at her t-shirt covered stomach. "Look, there you are baby!" I reached a hand out and patted Bella's flat tummy. "But mommy says you look like a jellybean right now. I have to disagree though, you looked amazing on the sonogram."

Bella grabbed the camera back and pointed it at me. "Stop saying nothing and say something actually meaningful to our child," Bella griped playfully.

"I love you!" I said, blowing a kiss at the camera.

"Are you talking to me, the camera, or the person behind me?" Bella asked, turning the camera around to the large man sitting directly behind Bella. I laughed and Bella pointed the camera back at me.

"I'm talking to you, and whoever is watching this video," I laughed.

"Okay, I think we have had enough air time for today," Bella said, turning the camera around and pointing it at herself, "the next time you see us, I will be walking down the isle and Daddy will be waiting at the end of it for me!"

I laughed as she turned it off and leaned in to kiss her. She smiled into our kiss, and we broke a part so she could put the camera up and we could talk about what we would be doing the rest of the day.

When we got there, Sunday church had just ended and the reverend asked if it was okay for some to sit in on our wedding. We agreed, not really caring. We went our separate ways to get dressed.

When I was getting dressed, I didn't really feel nervous. I had a black tuxedo with dark grey stollers and a black bow tie. I walked down and saw a couple of elderly couples sitting in the pews looking excited. It wasn't a large church by any means, so I didn't have far to walk until I was standing at the end of the isle next to the reverend.

We had already given our camera to a lady so she could film it and I was starting to get nervous that Bella might leave. I didn't have anything to offer her- I was dieing. She was already having my baby, and I knew that she didn't want to get married until she had finished school and she still have a while before she was going to finish. What if she didn't want to marry a dieing person. Who would?

But then I heard a slow piece of music and the doors opened to reveal a beautiful Bella walking slowly towards me. She was wearing a form fitting off-white dress that had lace shoulder straps that hung loosely around the outsides of her shoulders. There was lace going down the dress and made up the train.

She finally got to me and I took her hand and kissed it. The whole ceremony seemed to rush by, the vows until it was finally time to place the rings. I had gotten her a simple silver band that had small diamonds around it and a large one in the middle. Mine was just a simple silver band.

Finally, I got to kiss her and we got to leave to go back to our hotel. On our way out, we grabbed the camera and I got our bags. Once we got back to our hotel, I was getting tired but I wanted to have the night with my wife.

We packed up our stuff to leave New Orleans. I was sad to leave the beautiful town, and nervous about our next stop. Bella and I had been arguing about telling my family. She thought that they had a right to know, and I agreed but I didn't want to tell them yet. Bella insisted we make stops by their house.

I, of course, gave in and we were now on our way to Tennessee. My brother insisted on living here during the summer because he liked to have breaks during the summer and no body thought to look for him in his cabin in the woods in Tennessee. His wife, Rosalie, hated it here but always came with him because in turn, he would go with her to anywhere she wanted to go in the winter.

Emmett, my brother, was a famous architect that was high in demand for his work. He would get a bunch right before summer and work on them so no one could bother him, and then distribute them right after summer.

He usually lived in New York, but I knew he didn't like it there, that's why he got a house in Tennessee. I always joked that it was like the old TV show, Green Acres for Rosalie.

We were heading to his summer home to break the news, the good and the bad.

"Edward, please tell the camera where we are going now," Bella asked comically, pointing the camera at me from the passenger seat of the car. The camera had a light going, shining at me so you could see my face even though it was dark. We had wanted to get there quickly and so we weren't stopping except to eat, and we switched driving places when the other was getting tired. We just happened to be up at the same time and it was around ten at night.

"We are going to see Uncle Emmett and Auntie Rosalie!" I said excitedly to the camera.

"Edward, keep your eyes on the road, I don't want to die in a car accident," Bella joked, pointing towards the road. I laughed and looked at the road. "Now, Edward, can you tell us what we are going to do at Uncle Emmie's house?"

"I don't know…try not to get shot by his crazy hunting tactics," I said seriously. I heard Bella start to giggle and then I started to laugh with her.

"Now seriously, what are we going to do at Emmett's house?" Bella asked her voice completely serious.

I looked over at her and saw her eyes had some sadness in them, which in turn, made me sad.

"We are going to tell him about me," I said, but I couldn't let the mood get me completely down. "And tell him about our baby!" I said excitedly. I looked over at Bella with a huge smile on my face and Bella was starting to cry.

"Edward, you don't have to try and cheer me up every time we mention it, you know," Bella said, wiping away her tears with her free hand. I pulled the car over to the side of the highway and stopped the car. I took the camera out of her hands and placed it on the dashboard, not bothering to turn it off.

"Love, I hate to see you sad. I can't help it. I love you, ma femme," I said, taking her hands in mine and kissing each of them. She smiled through her tears and pulled my hands to her and kissed them.

"And I love you, mon mari," she said back. I smiled and leaned over to kiss her. She smiled into the kiss but before I could deepen it, she pushed me away. I gave her a questioning look and she pointed at the camera. I just shrugged and kissed her, licking her bottom lip and taking it into my mouth, sucking on it lightly.

She sighed softly and I heard her hand scrambling around, looking for the reclining button on the side of the chair. I felt the chair start to go backwards and when it had gone all the way down, I climbed onto her seat. She had already started to pull my shirt off and after it was tossed into the back, I worked on her shirt. I tossed it off quickly and placed light kisses along her jaw until I got to under her ear.

I started to suck on the area right under her ear and she moaned softly. I smiled and worked my way down until I reached her collarbone. I sucked on it too and my hands went around and unclasped her bra and took it off quickly. I started to kiss my way down again and she started to grind against me and I lost it. I quickly unbuttoned her jeans and pushed them down to her knees along with her panties. While she kicked them off the rest of the way, I pushed down my jeans and boxers.

I kissed her again and she pulled my head down further and her tongue forced its way into my mouth. I happily complied and her tongue swirled around, fighting for dominance. She kept lifting her waist up to meet mine and finally I pushed her waist down in gently pushed a part her legs.

I pushed into her and she moaned a low, shaking moan. She moved her mouth from mine and started to kiss my neck again, sucking on certain spots hard. I moved in her slowly at first but she kept pushing up with her hips, making me lose control and pound her hard.

She cried out as I kept at the rough, fast pace. I felt sweat on my brow and Bella shone lightly sweat, the light from the camera lighting us up. I felt her tighten around me, but she wouldn't come. I felt myself ready to burst, but I didn't want to be first, yet she wasn't going. Finally I couldn't take it anymore and spilled into her. I felt tired but finished her with two more thrusts.

I fell onto her and we were both breathing heavily. She placed soft kisses all over my neck and shoulder. I smiled and complied. After a couple of minute, I pulled out of her and pulled my boxers and jeans back up.

I grabbed her bra and panties, handing them back to her. She beamed at me and put them on while I climbed back to my seat. I placed my shirt back on and handed her the jeans and shirt that were in my seat.

After she had all her clothes on and her seat back in the up right position, we were driving again.

"Oh my god!" Bella exclaimed, grabbing the camera from the dashboard. She stopped it and went back to the video, playing it. I could hear our serious talk and then everything was quiet before you heard Bella's moan coming from the camera.

I looked over and Bella was blushing like crazy. I grabbed the camera and it had a perfect angle of us going at it. I laughed and Bella tried to take the camera back, but I held it too far for her reach.

"Edward, you need to be driving!" She said and I shook my head.

"Honey, we can not delete this," I said, keeping the camera at a safe distance. Bella was quiet for a minute and you could hear us still going at it from the camera.

"You came before I did!" She said immaturely.

"W-what does that have to do with anything?" I asked, stumbling over the words. She was so sexy when she brought that up. She was quiet while she thought, thinking through a plan I could see was brewing in her head.

"I propose a bet," she said cheekily.

"What type of bet?" I asked wearily.

"Who can make the other come first, five times." She said. I narrowed my eyes. I come first once, and I made a monster. But who could deny sex like that? She was trying with everything to make me more aroused. I couldn't pass this up.

"Stakes?" I asked.

"Winner gets to decide what to do with the video," she said. I smiled and held out my hands. She shook it.

"No, I want this. I can have sex with you whenever. I can only capture it on tape this one time. I'm keeping it," I replied back, just as cheekily. Bella huffed and stared straight out across the road. I laughed at her pouting.

**This is a long-ass chapter, at least for my chapters. :P Reviews are better than sex-tape-Edward. **


	6. High of 75

**Disclaimer: I own nothing; this is all Stephanie's genius.**

"Salut!" Bella said to Rosalie, hugging her at the front porch. I saw Rosalie's face light up.

"Bonjour! Ça va?" Rosalie asked, happy to be using her French. It was always fun at family gatherings- Rosalie, Bella and Alice would talk it up in French because they never used it besides with each other. No one in the house knew what they were saying, besides me and I don't know that much. It was a standing tradition between them.

"Ça va bien. Et toi?" Bella responded.

"Je m'ennuie," Rosalie exclaimed. I laughed and so did Bella. Rosalie invited Bella into the house and Emmett came out to help me with the bags. We were planning on staying here for a week, so Bella wanted her bag.

"How are you doing?" I asked Emmett before he could ask me.

"I'm good; Rosalie won't let me work though. She's been going on and on about wanting a pool here if she has to stay in this 'God forsaken house, in this God forsaken state,'" Emmett said, picking up Bella's bag for me. "So I have been working on a pool for the last couple of weeks, almost done now though."

I had been slowly noticing my decline. I couldn't pick up heavy stuff (a.k.a bags) for long periods of time. (A.k.a waiting in line to be checked in) I could still carry heavy stuff though. I made sure not to let Bella notice.

Emmett led me into the huge house and into one of the guest bedrooms. I happily tossed my stuff in the room and had Emmett lead me to where the girls were. They were standing on the back porch where the pool had already been started on. The concrete was laid down along with the stuff that goes on top of the concrete; all that was needed was water.

"All that I need to do now is to pick out the tile and pick out a place where I want the tile dolphin to be," Rosalie said to Bella.

"You're getting a tile dolphin?" I asked. Rosalie nodded, not looking back at me. The landscaping had already been done and you could tell where the concrete trucks had been in their backyard. There were lawn chairs and a deck right next to the diving board.

"Cool pool," Bella said, turning around and looking at me.

"You guys will have to get one when you get married," Emmett said, turning to walk back into the house. Bella looked down and blushed. I laughed at her blush, which was the wrong move.

Rosalie noticed and gasped, which got Emmett's attention. Rosalie's gaze zeroed in on the ring on Bella's finger, and then on the ring on my finger.

"Oh my God! Alice is going to kill both of you!" Rosalie yelled, throwing her arms around Bella and hugging her.

"What?" Emmett yelled, turning around and looking at us. Bella just held up her left hand, showing off her wedding band. Emmett just smiled coolly. "Alice is going to kill you both, and then bring you back so she can plan your 'official' wedding."

I knew how likely it was that I was going to indeed die, but I also knew how unlikely it was that Alice could bring me back, even over a matter as important as holy matrimony.

"I'm so glad you guys fit us in on your whole 'across America' trip," Rosalie said, dipping herself some salad. Bella licked her lips at the mashed potatoes and I handed them to her quickly. She dished herself two huge spoonfuls before Emmett cut in.

"Leave some for the rest of us Bella," he joked. I glared at him and Bella looked up from the potatoes. She shyly put the serving spoon back in the bowl before grabbing her fork and slowly pushing the potatoes around her plate.

"Honey, it's okay. Eat," I tried. She had become self-conscious about herself lately, complaining about already seeing her baby-bump. I, personally, could not see it though.

"It's okay. Here," she offered up her plate to me, "grab some, I don't need all of them."

I pushed her plate back. "Yes, you do. Eat," I commanded. She bit her lip and placed the plate back down. She timidly took a small bite of potatoes and then grabbed the salad. She dished some out and took a bite of it, ignoring the mashed carbs.

Rosalie was watching this whole thing and smiled. She pushed aside the salad and grabbed the mashed potato bowl. She got three huge spoonfuls and plowed into them. Bella looked up and smiled.

"You guys don't have to do that," she said, knowing Rosalie didn't like mashed potatoes.

"Yeah we do. Sorry Bella," Emmett apologized. I smiled at them. I really did have a great family and I knew then for sure that if the rest of the family for some reason didn't accept Bella after I was gone, they would take care of her.

"Can we talk to you guys?" Bella asked after she and Rosalie had cleared the table. Emmett and I were doing the dishes and looked up at her. I made eye contact with her and nodded.

"Sure, Edward and I are almost done with the dishes, we'll be there in a minute," Emmett said over her shoulder. Rosalie looked at us with a knowing smile, grabbing Bella's hand and leading her into the living room.

Emmett and I finished dishes and we walked back into the living room where Bella was sitting on the love seat, a smirk on her face and Rosalie sitting on the couch looking mad. Emmett sat down next to her and I sat next to Bella.

"We have some extremely good news, and then some extremely bad news," Bella started. I knew that she was only thinking about the baby, and trying not to dwindle on the bad news.

"Okay, bad news first," Rosalie said, sitting on the edge of her seat. I looked over at Bella and saw her immediately look at the floor. Time was supposed to heal everything, but it wasn't. I was getting used to the fact that I was going to die in about ten months, but Bella seemed to try and forget, and then people would bring it up and it was like telling my parents all over again.

"Okay, umm," I started. I wanted to be gentle so they wouldn't be too sad to enjoy the news about the baby, but I didn't know how. "I went to the doctor's right before school ended…I had been feeling odd you know, maybe the beginning of the flu, but I didn't have the flu. I have blood cancer," I said. Rosalie gasped and Emmett hugged her.

"But you're going to get treatment, right?" Emmett asked. I shook my head.

I sat there, not sure of what to say. 'No, I'm not getting treatment because I'm going to die anyway.' I don't think that would work out well. I just shook my head instead.

"So you're giving up without fighting it?" Emmett asked, outraged. I grimaced. Emmett had only ever given me two lectures in my life besides this one: the first was when I was five and he was seven, I tattled on him to mom and he had a long talk with me on not being a momma's boy. The second was when I had dumped Bella because she wanted a life, children, stableness, and at the time I wanted to be a musician, I just knew I wasn't going to be good for her. Emmett knocked some sense into me, but now I'm wishing he hadn't. She didn't deserve this.

"I'm not giving up. My body already did that for me," I said quietly. Emmett was fuming.

"It didn't give up, you did. Loads of people get cancer and live because they seek treatment. You seem fine, it couldn't be that far along," he said, making me sound like a wimp.

"Well, it is. It's terminal, and I'm expected to die in around ten months. The treatment would only delay the inevitable," I said coldly.

I hugged Bella to me and saw she was crying again. I looked at Rosalie to see her breaking down. She got up slowly and kneeled before Bella. They just hugged. I looked at Emmett and he usually was the strong one, but he was running his hand through his hair, fighting back tears.

I got up to hug him, and got engulfed in a huge bear hug. Emmett was breaking down. I felt Rosalie's hand on my back and I detached myself form Emmett so she could comfort her husband.

I went back to Bella and saw she wasn't sobbing or anything, just crying. I kissed her forehead and hugged her to me, whispering that I loved her. She hugged me back for a minute, and then pushed me back.

"We do have good news," Bella said, wiping her tears away. Rosalie looked at us some tears slowly going down her face, but Emmett was looking at the ground, still crying.

"Bella is pregnant," I said, my voice rough from fighting back tears. Rosalie looked shocked, but Emmett shot his head up.

"W-what?" Emmett asked.

"Bella is going to have a baby," I said.

"Your baby?" He asked, clearly not thinking straight. I nodded. He got up quickly and walked out of the room. Rosalie smiled at us but I could tell she wanted to cry harder. She got up and hugged me, kissed Bella's forehead, and then she followed after her husband.

"That wasn't as bad as I thought it would be," I said, trying to lighten the mood. Bella shot me a look then walked out of the room and back into the kitchen. I heard the stove top burner start up, and then I heard Bella clanging around in the kitchen. I got up after a minute to make sure she didn't hurt herself.

I found her over a pot, stirring stuff around. She stopped stirring it, and then moved to the mixer and started to mix some white stuff.

"What are you making, love?" I asked, walking closer. She didn't answer me, but she kept on mixing things or adding stuff or getting out another pan. I figured out the white stuff was whipped cream and then stuff she was stirring was melted chocolate. She had the chocolate in a small bowl that was being held over a large bowl with boiling water in it.

She got out another bowl and started tossing flour and sugar in it, along with some milk and eggs. I just assumed would be cookies.

"Love, you can't just ignore me," I tried again, touching her forearm. She pulled away her arm from my touch and went back to her cookies. I sighed and sat down on the counter. She couldn't cook forever.

I was wrong. It was almost midnight, Rosalie and Emmett hadn't resurfaced and Bella was still going at it. She had made this delicious looking dessert that was a large cookie log, vanilla ice cream, chocolate syrup, whipped cream and then she put a bunch of chopped berries in it. She ate half of it, and then put the rest in the freezer. When I got off the counter to grab it, she glared at me. So I jumped back to my position on the counter.

Now she was making dinners for Rosalie and Emmett. She would cook one and then throw it in a Tupperware and place it in the fridge. She had made them a wonderful looking green bean casserole and was now working on home-made lasagna. I was about to be drooling.

"Love, please," I begged. She still didn't acknowledge me. At least when I went to grab the dessert, she glared at me.

I figured that bad attention was better than no attention so I jumped off the counter and went to the freezer. She only turned around when she saw me open the freezer. She glared at me, but I just ignored her and grabbed the bowl.

I got a spoon from the drawer and took a huge bite. Yep, it was heaven. I closed my eyes and moaned. I could still feel her glare. I took another huge bite.

I didn't hear her come up to me, but she did and she took away the bowl. I opened my eyes and saw her walking back towards the freezer. I ran up behind her before she could get there and wrapped one of my arms around her waist. With the other I took another spoonful of dessert.

"Edward!" Bella yelled in frustration when I didn't let go of her. I took the bowl away from her and placed it back into the freezer. I threw the spoon into the sink and wrapped the other arm around her. I kissed her neck and hugged her tightly.

"I love you," I said simply. She sighed in frustration.

"You have to know by now that I can't handle jokes yet," she said, her voice cracking at the end. I hugged her even tighter into my and kissed her neck again. "And I'm pregnant and can't handle emotions because I feel sick all the time, yet I can't stop eating," she was crying by now.

I turned her around and hugged her, letting her cry on my shoulder. I just kissed her head over and over again, hoping she will get the message that I was sorry.

"I know, and I love you so much," I said. She started to calm down a little bit.

"I don't know what I'm going to do when I don't have somebody to help me. You aren't going to be there when our baby is being potty trained or when they have a bad dream and can't sleep on their own or when he or she goes through puberty and has to deal with dates and zits and you won't be there when he or she gets married," Bella cried, and then she paused after the getting married part. "And if it's a girl, who will walk her down the isle? Who will grow old with me? Who will be their at the retirement home that when I get old and forget, who will be there to remember me? Who will be there that I remember?" She sobbed.

I felt myself crying too. I wanted someone to comfort me, and tell me she was going to be okay, but I knew that it wasn't going to happen. No one was comforting me, so I had to at least try to help her.

"Love, you have eight people that love you and will love this baby. They will help you raise this child, they will help you take care of everything when I can't," I said, my voice cracking every few words.

We were standing there, crying, and I lowered us to the ground. Bella's tears were hot and heavy, and my crying probably wasn't helping too much. After a while I felt Bella grow limp in my arms.

I calmed myself down a little and then lifted her off the ground. I got us to the guest room and set her gently on the bed. I undressed her and put her in one of my shirts that she liked to wear to bed.

I knew I wouldn't be able to go to bed so I grabbed the video camera and went to another guest room down the long hallway of rooms. I shut the door, turned on the lights, and put the camera down on the bed, facing it towards a chair that I would sit in.

I turned it on and sat down in the chair. "Hey baby. I know this isn't a part of the videos we agreed to make for our baby, but I thought you would need some videos, too," I started, smiling my best at the camera but I could feel my bloodshot eyes from crying and my face was probably stained with tears. I ran a hand through my messy hair.

"We just had a fight. You were upset about me not going to be there for you," I felt my voice crack. "But you know I am going to be there. I plan on trying my hardest to prove those doctors wrong. I mean, if you see this video, either you stumbled upon this or I have died…so if it's the latter one, I'm sorry I couldn't make it. If it's the first one, just ignore this stupid attempt to make you feel better.

"I just love you so much; I don't want to be gone for the baby's potty training. I want to be there for everything: the bad dreams, the puberty, I want to walk our little girl down the isle, and if he isn't a girl, I want to be there to talk him out of his wedding day jitters. I want to be there to grow old with you. I want to be there in the retirement home to help you remember who you are and where you are. I want that," I said and by now I was crying again. I felt the hot tears slide down my face and wiped them away quickly.

"I love you. I love our child, and I love our family. I just wish I could be there for everything that's going to happen. I wish I could be there for Alice and Jasper's and Rosalie and Emmett's first child, our child's first date. God," I shoved my hand through my hair again. "I wish I could be there for everything. And I promise that I will try with all that I have in me!" I said and then I got up and turned off the camera.

**Reviews are better than the dessert Chocolate Covered Cookie Logs in Ice Cream with Berries. **


	7. Second Chance

**Disclaimer: I own nothing; it is all Stephanie's genius. **

I woke up the next day late. Bella wasn't by me in the bed, so I looked around and saw that the bathroom light wasn't on either. I looked at the clock. 10:30. I really was late for waking up.

I got out of bed and changed into some jeans and a t-shirt. I was feeling really hungry so I didn't take a shower and just went straight for the kitchen. When I got there Bella was sitting at the table with Rosalie and Emmett.

"About time you wake up," Emmett joked, getting up from the table and grabbing me a bowl from one of the shelves. I looked wearily at Bella and she just shrugged. Emmett handed me the bowl.

"I could have gotten that myself," I said as Emmett guided me towards the table.

"I know, but I wanted to do it. What cereal do you want? We have Rice Crispies, Raisin Bran, and Frosted Flakes-"

"Emmett, I can get it myself," I insisted as I set my bowl down and went into the pantry to retrieve the Raisin Bran. When I came back Emmett was gone but milk was sitting by my bowl. "What got into him?" I asked Rosalie and Bella as I poured myself a bowl.

"I don't know…maybe he feels back because he can't do anything and his only brother is dieing while his wife is having his baby," Rosalie said sarcastically as she got up to look for Emmett.

I sighed and sat down, pouring milk into my bowl. "I hope you're not mad at me too," I said, looking at Bella.

She smiled warmly at me and rubbed my back. "Nope," she said, popping her 'p'.

"Have you been sick this morning?" I asked and she nodded her head. I smiled at her and kissed her lips, and then looked down at her belly.

"Baby, you sure are causing some problems for mommy," I said and kissed her still flat belly. I looked up and smiled at her. "We are going to be parents," I said without thinking.

Bella's smile faltered and she shifted uncomfortably in the chair. She grimaced and suddenly jumped out of the chair, running for the bathroom. I grimaced.

"Emmett?" I asked, knocking lightly on his open study door. He had been working on his designs since this morning and it was now around five. "Can I come in?" I asked.

"Sure, just take a seat," he said, drawing a little more and then setting down his pencil to look at me. "What'd ya need?"

"I was just wondering how you were holding up," I said, sitting in on of the office chairs.

"I'm doing fine, but we should be asking you this," he said, smiling at me.

"You can't do anything, plus I'm not in pain yet. I don't think I will be really seeing the signs until later."

"I still want to do everything I can to help out," he defended.

"I know you do, but if you keep helping me out, you're not going to let us go at the end of the week. I know I'm your little brother, and you want to protect me, but you can't anymore. I'm in this one by myself," I said. Emmett got mad at that comment.

"How dare you say that you're in this by yourself?" He asked, clearly outraged. "Bella is the number one fighter, and now a baby is also for you, Rose and I, Alice and Jasper, Mom and Dad for Christ's sake!"

"Emmett, I'm sorry I just meant-"

"You meant you want to be alone?" He finished for me.

"No! I love-"

"You love us, but you don't want our help?" he asked.

"No, I want your help; I just don't want to be waited on hand and foot. I can do things by myself; I don't need your help!" I tried to explain.

"I love you little brother, but I'm going to help you in any way I can."

I huffed out a sigh of breath and then got up and left the room. "Oh and Emmett, lunch is ready!" I yelled over my shoulder as I stormed into the guest room.

I had to cool off in the guestroom, listening to music. Bella soon found me laying on the bed and laid down next to me. We just sat there, not saying anything. Bella rubbed up and down my arm, and I hugged her close to me.

"You can't stay mad at him forever," Bella whispered after awhile. I buried my face into her shoulder.

"I know, and I'm not mad per say," I admitted. She sighed and stoked my head, kissing my hair lightly. I just sat there, looking intently at her, wishing she could give me the answer.

"It's the five stages of grief. Well, there are two lists that I think are really true; the five stages and the three stages. The five stage one is- Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. The three stage one is Numbness, Disorganization, and Reorganization. I think that Emmett is going through the five stage one and we just have to hope he goes with it and gets through bargaining and depression quickly so he can get to acceptance," she explained. I nodded and thought about it.

"You should probably apologies today. We are supposed to leave tomorrow," Bella said after a moment of silence between us. I sighed and nodded my head. I kissed her neck and got up off the bed.

"You're right," I said to show I acknowledged her as I walked over to her side of the bed, holding out my hand to her. She got up and accepted my hand, smiling up at me.

Together we walked into the kitchen where Emmett, Rosalie and some of the stuff Bella had made last night, were at the table. My plate had some piled on, and Bella's was there too.

Rosalie saw us first, having finished her lunch and was just staring at the floor before she saw us, and Emmett was still munching loudly.

"Hey," Rosalie said quietly. She still had bloodshot eyes. I smiled at her, hoping she got the message that I was sorry.

"Hey," Bella said back, walking over to her plate next to Rosalie. I walked around the table to where Emmett was and next to him was my plate. I sat down awkwardly.

"Hello," I said, picking up my fork. Emmett didn't really show that he saw us. After a minute of silence, Bella kicked my foot under the table. I gave her a meaningful look, but she just glared back at me. I sighed and put my fork down. "Hey Emmett?"

He looked up, and gave me a questioning look. "Yeah?"

"I just wanted to tell you I'm sorry. I didn't mean any of that. I need my family, I know that, but I just couldn't take knowing that I was going to really need you guys later on. I don't want to have to deal with that," I said, looking over at Bella to show Emmett that he would need to look after Bella.

"I know," he said simply, clapping my shoulder hard with his hand. I smiled at him and he nodded at me before going back to his lunch.

We did leave the next day, not wanting to miss anything. Next, we were going back down south to Orlando, Florida. I didn't tell Bella where we were going, just that we were going south again, and I'm pretty sure she could figure that out on her own.

I wanted Bella to be surprised by Disney world.

"_Convict…music_," Bella sang with the CD. I rolled my eyes at her, annoyed with her music choice. She had made a mix CD on her laptop along the drive, and was now playing it. This one was 'I Wanna Love You' cover by The Maine.

"_I love the way you shake your ass_," Bella kept singing, now dancing a little bit, trying to spice up the boring drive. I started to laugh at her as she danced. Bella smiled up at me as the song came to a close, her dance stopping. The next song came on, one that was quieter and slower than the last.

"What's this?" I asked, interested. Bella looked at me weirdly.

"You don't know this song?" She asked, and by her voice I knew that she was joking. I shook my head. "Oh, well…it's only a song that everybody knows," she said, trying to further agitate me.

"I don't know it, so not everybody can know it," I said, proud of my smart ass comment.

"If you really, really don't know the title, it's 'On Your Porch' by The Format, and not many people know them," she said, bobbing her head to the beat.

The song was quiet, slow, and the man singing had a slightly rough voice, but you could easily get used to it and just listen to the words.

**Reviews are better than The Maine. **


	8. Come On Get Higher

**Disclaimer: I own nothing; it is all Stephanie's genius.**

"Mickey, go get Mickey's autograph!" I said, pushing Bella in the direction of the man in a mouse suit. She turned around and gave me the weirdest look. It was a combination of 'what the hell?' and 'do I look like I'm five?' I just laughed at her, and grabbed her hand, dragging her towards Mickey.

"Ed-ward?" She whined, pulling my arm. I just smiled back at her.

"Yes?" I drawled.

"Do we really need to act like five year olds to get an autograph?" She asked, making her voice as sweet as possible.

"I want you to get the full Disney experience. Half that experience is getting autographs from strangers," I said.

We reached the line to get the autograph and Bella huffed. I saw the little kids extremely excited to get to meet Mickey. I smiled at them. I looked back at Bella who was reading some ads around the park area we were at. I looked down at her stomach. She had gotten the cutest baby bump. It was still pretty small, but she is around four months along, so not much should be showing.

The line moved up slowly and Bella sighed every time we had to stop. I rolled my eyes heavenward at her.

_Sigh. _I looked over at Bella, but she had the most confused look on her face. I looked at her, but then her eyes darted around. _Sigh._ I looked around and saw a small little girl, probably around six, standing right behind Bella, mimicking her every move and sigh. I laughed as Bella figured out where the sighs were coming from.

I crouched down in front of the little girl. She smiled shyly at me.

"Hello," I said, holding out my hand. "I'm Edward, what's your name?" I asked.

She took my hand carefully. "I'm Adrienne, Addy for short," she told me. I smiled and looked over my shoulder at Bella who was watching the whole encounter with great interest.

"Well Addy, do you like Mickey Mouse?" I asked sweetly. I looked up at her mother, hoping she didn't think we were some type of child stealers or something. She was smiling at Bella when I looked up. Probably saw she was pregnant and thought we were fine.

I looked back at Addy and she was nodding. "Yeah," she said shyly.

"Bella here doesn't know much about Mickey, and is a little scared to ask for his autograph, could you help Bella out and show her that Mickey is nice and fun?" I asked, smiling up at Bella. Her face was shocked at first, and then she masked it with a smile, obviously panicked.

"Mickey isn't mean," Addy stated, looking at Bella. "Mickey is really nice! All of the Disney people are nice."

Bella looked somewhat cornered, not knowing how to talk to a little kid. I smiled encouragingly at her.

"What's your favorite Disney character?" Bella asked.

Addy had to think about that one. "I like Aurora the best," she finally said.

"Who's Aurora?" Bella asked, looking confused.

"Aurora is Sleeping Beauty," I said, and Addy smiled approvingly at me. The line was moving slowly but surely and we were now the fifth person in line.

"What do you like about Sleeping Beauty?" Bella asked.

"She got separated from her prince for awhile, but they were together in the end," she said. I smiled and nodded.

"Doesn't that happen in every Disney movie?" Bella further questioned. Addy had to think about it again.

"Yes, but in Sleeping Beauty, they knew they had to be together, the prince fought for his princess. In Beauty and the Beast, Beauty loved Beast, but she didn't really find out until the end. In Cinderella, the prince didn't even recognize his princess. In Pocahontas, she thinks he's dead, so she goes off with someone else in the sequel. In Snow White, the prince never was looking for her, not until the end. In The Little Mermaid, the prince didn't know it was her." Addy explained. I was personally floored that a girl all of five could defend herself.

"Wow, you know your princesses!" I congratulated. We were next in line and Bella grabbed my hand. Addy grabbed my hand and got up next to us in line. I smiled and looked back at her mom.

"Would you mind taking her up there and me getting a picture?" her mother asked and I nodded my head and smiled.

As it was our turn, we walked up to Mickey and Bella held out her autograph book first, Mickey taking it and signing it. She stepped back and Addy came up next, holding out her book. Mickey signed her's, and than Addy started to pose with Mickey, but last second she jumped up, grabbing our hands. I started to back away but saw the line making a fuss and went along with it.

That's how we got into a Mickey Mouse picture with a five year old.

"Oh my gosh! I'm never eating a hot dog again!" Bella complained, plopping down on a park bench while rubbing her stomach.

"I think you shouldn't eat two hot dogs with more ketchup and relish than actual hot dog and then ride the tea cup ride," I corrected and Bella glared at me as I sat down next to her.

"Why don't you feel sick?" She whined.

"Because I'm not pregnant and I'm a man; it's our genetic code to be able to eat two hot dogs and then ride nauseating rides," I bragged.

"You ate three hot dogs!" She said. I just shrugged.

"Want to go on another ride?" I asked, jumping up. I held out my hand for Bella to take but she just groaned and threw her head back. "No? Well I guess we could sit here for a minute."

"Whose bright idea was it to take a pregnant woman to Disney World?" Bella asked her head still back. I felt guilty for taking her here.

"Me," I said. I took one of her hands that was rubbing her belly and kissed it. "I'm sorry. I thought since you weren't very pregnant that now would be the best time."

Bella's face contorted. "I'm sorry, that was uncalled for," she said. I just shook my head.

"We can cut the trip short if you're not up for it," I said.

"No, I'm not finished having fun yet," Bella smiled and grabbed my hand, getting up with minimal difficulty.

"Edward, I'm taking a nice warm shower and I will be out in a couple hours. Bye," she said as we entered our room and she headed straight for the shower. I laughed and went to go sit on the bed.

I plopped down and was wiped out until I saw the video camera. I jumped back up and started to tape.

"I can't believe you didn't give me my towel back, you jerk." Bella joked as we drove down the east coast highway. We had done Disney World and a couple Universities and even had gone to Washington DC, but since Bella was getting larger, we couldn't really go places that required walking everywhere.

"I did," I defended.

"You were filming and made me step in front of the camera while I was only in a towel," she growled. I laughed and she shot me a deathly glare.

"I never made you walk-"

I was cut short by her glare's intensification.

I laughed and looked back at the road map on my Tom-Tom. I knew we were getting close to our next stop and I didn't want to miss our exit.

"Where are we going anyway?" Bella asked, shifting in her seat. Ever since we left Disney World and went by Duke, she had been shifting around in her seat. I think ever since she past her fifth month, she couldn't get comfortable.

"When do I ever tell you where we are going? I thought you'd have figured it out by now. We are almost there," I said, looking out the window. In Bella's defense, she had never gone to our destination before.

"At first I thought we were going to New York, New York but then we didn't exit at the right exit, so I don't know," she said.

"I'll give you a hint: it will be very excited-" I started.

"Alice and Jasper?!"

**Reviews are better than hot dogs. **


	9. Bob and Bonnie

**Disclaimer: I own nothing; this is all Stephanie's genius. **

**I'm sooo sorry that it's even shorter than my normal extremely-short chapters, but I thought it was a good place to end. Plus, I'm putting it all out at the same time so you can just move on to the next chapter, so it's not like your getting less. :/**

"Alice and Jasper?!" Bella guessed, smiling. "I thought they lived further up north then this!" She squealed.

I laughed at her excitement. "Yes, but they still don't know we're married, or that we're expecting," I warned her. Bella was silent for a minute.

"True, but once we tell them everything, they will understand."

She said it so quietly, I almost didn't hear. Truthfully, I had forgotten about it. My back was hurting most of the time, but I had gotten some pain meds before leaving the hospital for Bella's last check-up. I read about it, and that's one of the symptoms. Next is yellowing eyes and skin, a.k.a jaundice. But I wasn't supposed to get that until the end. Right now my symptoms should be limited to fatigue, backaches, and maybe weight loss. I've only gotten fatigue and backache, so I know I'm about half way there.

It's a little unnerving to think about, but when I'm with Bella and we are joking or with people we love, or even just talking about the baby, I forget. And just like that, I'm an average married man who is expecting a child. I just forget.

"Bella! Edward!" Alice squealed, running towards us as we stepped through the front door that Jasper had just opened for us.

"Alice!" Bella squealed back, holding her arms out in front of her. Alice had launched herself at Bella, never pausing to see the large bump on her stomach. As if on cue, right as they wrapped their arms around each other, Alice jerked back, a hand on Bella's stomach.

"Oh. My. God!" Alice said in a low voice, bending down to inspect the baby bump.

"I'm expecting!" Bella said, waving her hands in the air, hoping the enthusiasm would be transferred to Alice's blank expression.

Alice was silent for a minute, and it seemed everyone in the room was holding their breath. Suddenly Alice squealed and jumped up and down, a big smile on her face. "Yay! We're going to have mini-Bella and mini-Edwards running around!"

I let off a shaky laugh and saw relief flood over Bella's worried features. Jasper was suddenly in front of me, I had forgotten he was even in the room, shaking my hand. I smiled and Jasper smiled back at me, his approval and happiness clear.

"So when is it due?" Alice asked, pulling Bella's right hand towards the kitchen. I smiled as we all sat down around the table.

"It's not an 'it' Alice," Bella scolded. "He is due in around four months, I forget the actual due date because it seems I get a new one, it seems, every time I go to the doctor's office."

"It is a she," I corrected. Bella glared at me.

"Oh, so we don't really know the sex?" Jasper asked. I shook my head.

"Yes, we do. I know it's going to be a boy," Bella said calmly, rubbing a hand over her belly.

"And I know it's going to be a girl," I said. I smiled at Bella and she smiled back. We have had the same conversation about a thousand times now. Alice and Jasper just nodded and giggled at us.

"So are you going to get married after the baby is born, or are you going modern and not getting married? I think Brad and Angelina are doing that and they seem so happy-" Alice started, but I cut her off.

"No, we are already married," I said firmly. I grabbed Bella's left hand and held up her ring. Alice seemed to freeze over, going as stiff as a board. "Bella and I found out about four months ago that she was pregnant and we just decided that we wanted to get married, so we did in Louisiana."

Alice took a deep breath in and Jasper rubbed up and down her back. "So are you going to have another wedding?" she asked, looking at the table. I sighed and looked at Bella, hoping to get the strength I needed from her, but before I could even look in her eyes, she was talking.

"Yes, of course. We just didn't want to bring a baby into the world without being married. Very old fashioned, I know, but that's us," she smiled. I felt my face crumble but I quickly recovered and nodded.

"Great! We should get started now! Obviously we can't get a dress or anything but I think it would be great to get a date set, colors, flowers, food, music," Alice smiled, looking very happy in her element.

"Alice-" I started, but Bella was talking again.

"I don't think we should be planning already, I mean, I'm still pregnant and chances are I'm going to hate what I pick out now in a year."

I sighed and squeezed Bella's hand under the table.

"Yes, yes of course," Alice nodded. "How long are you guys going to stay in town?"

"Ummm, I think we are staying for about a week, if that's okay," I said. Alice smiled and nodded, jumping up from the table and taking Bella's hand, leading her to the guest room. I could hear Alice prattling on to Bella about shopping for baby clothes, but I stopped listening and directed my attention to Jasper who was sitting quietly at the table still.

He stared at me, as if I were a puzzle. "What's wrong?" I asked. He shook his head and pushed his chair back slowly and got up.

"Let's go get your luggage," he said as he walked past me. I just nodded and followed behind him.

"We got so much stuff!" Bella complained as she threw herself on the bed beside me. We had been at Alice's place for a total of 20 hours, 12 of those we were sleeping, and she had already insisted she take Bella shopping.

"I'm sure it will all be useful," I said absently, reading the paper on our bed.

"What's wrong?" she said immediately. I sighed.

"We didn't tell them the truth," I said. Bella nodded.

"They just heard that we are married, and expecting our first child, do they really need to hear that you've got cancer, too?" She said, leaning against the headboard. Her voice was detached, and an odd sound to her normal voice.

"No, but we still shouldn't have lied to them," I said. "It makes telling them now that much harder."

I saw her eyes well up with tears and I put my paper down to comfort her. I wrapped both my arms around her and kissed her forehead. She was trying to hold it back, but I could feel the moisture on my shirt anyway.

"Shh," I soothed. "Everything will be okay. Alice and Jasper might be hurt, but they will help you when I'm gone. Everyone will help, even if you yell at all of them, or never go shopping with Alice again, they will still help you raise this baby," I told her, running a hand softly over her belly, making circles around her growing middle.

"Our baby," she whispered, placing her hand on mine. I wanted to tell her it really wouldn't be my baby: he or she wouldn't even know what they were missing until they were old enough. The thing that stopped me was that look Bella gets when I mention I'm not going to be there. It's a frightened look or disbelief that I know all to well.

**Reviews are better than shopping with Alice's no-limit credit card. **


	10. Yellow

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything; it is all Stephanie's genius!**

Bella got back later that night from shopping with Alice, both of them burdened with copious amounts of baby clothes, maternity clothes, and men's clothes.

We put everything away, after Alice had showed us everything she and Bella bought, and settled down for a dinner of take-out Chinese. Bella was having a craving for mu-shu chicken with oranges.

Alice had been jabbering away for the past half hour while the rest of us ate around the coffee table in the living room. I kept looking at Bella, hoping to make eye contact, but she was looking at the floor, pushing around her weird mixture of foods.

"So," I started, cutting Alice off mid-sentence. "Bella and I have some more news."

Bella's head jerked up, her face stoic and eyes connecting with mine finally.

"Oh! More news! Are you guys having twins?" Alice asked excitedly. Jasper put a hand on her knee, and smiled at us to continue.

"No, its not really good news-" I started, still looking at Bella.

"It's nothing. I don't know why he even brought it up," Bella dismissed it, a smile spreading across her face as she pushed the thought away and dug her fork into her food, taking a huge bite. I gave her a look, but she couldn't be bothered. **(Catherine Tate. Haha!!! Rofl.)**

"Well now that's it has been brought up, I want to hear!" Alice said enthusiasm still in her voice. Bella sighed and rolled her eyes.

"The news is, I have cancer," I told them bluntly, still looking at Bella. I wasn't annoyed, but aggravated. She let it go like it was nothing and got mad when I told them the truth. We should have told them that from the beginning, not now. Yet she couldn't bare to really think about it. She never wanted to talk about me leaving; she never wanted to hear it. I only have about

I heard Alice gasp, and jump up. "Are you getting treatments?" she asked quickly. "How long is radiation? Are you going to have to do annual check-ups? Is your life-expectancy lower now?"

I sighed and tried to rein in my anger. "Yes, my life expectancy is lower. I probably have about six months left, maybe more, maybe less. And no, I'm not getting treatments. They would only help me for a little while, maybe not even a year more, and I would be spending my last year in and out of a hospital, sick all the time."

Alice's eyes filled with tears and I saw the tell-tale signs of her about to lose it and before I could actually see her really lose it, she ran off into the master bedroom, Jasper running after her.

"I hope you're happy," Bella growled at me, picking up the take-out dishes and stomping off into the kitchen. I sighed and grabbed the rest that she couldn't carry by herself. As I walked into the kitchen, Bella was raking food violently into a plastic container. I slowly approached her and set down the food I was carrying.

"Love," I started softly, trying to get her to calm down.

"Don't you 'Love' me, Cullen!" She said fiercely. I backed off for a minute, trying to access the situation calmly to find the right angle to approach her from.

"Bella," I said my tone soft and hurt. She kept raking food violently into the plastic tub. I took it as a positive sign. "We couldn't keep it from them, you know that. Now my family knows, now we can really talk about it with them. You are as close to my family as I am, if not closer, I thought you'd understand how I _need_ to talk to them."

She sighed again. "I know," she said quietly. She set the empty plate down and rubbed her belly.

"I think Alice needs us right now," I said. She nodded but didn't move. "I'm going to Alice," I told as I turned around and walked out the door of the kitchen and to the master bedroom.

Bella didn't follow me. Half of me didn't expect her to; the other half told me to have some faith in her. After I comforted a hurt little sister and soothed her to sleep, I walked out and into the kitchen to find it deserted. Everything was put away, the dishes were done, and the countertops even looked spotless. (A rare thing for my sister to have the kitchen clean in the middle of the week. The maid comes on Saturdays.)

I sighed and walked down the hall and into the guest bedroom where we were staying. I saw Bella curled up, still in her jeans and t-shirt, with bags from her shopping trip earlier stacked around her on the bed.

I walked over and took the bags off as quietly as I could, setting them on the floor and quietly walked back over to a peaceful, sleeping Bella. I slowly lifted her into an upright position and stripped her of her shirt.

Bella's body had changed a lot, just from her thirteenth to fourteenth week. Her breasts were bigger, her stomach coming out a little, and her butt gave a more round shape than the usual soft curve.

She moaned a little as I took her bra off and I smiled. I could hear her voice mocking me, "even in a deep comatose state, Edward Cullen can charm the ladies." I slowly set her back down and unbuttoned her jeans. I slid them off and another sexy sound escaped my love's mouth, her hips lifting the tiniest bit.

She was so incredibly sexy without even trying. She could turn me on with the slightest of sounds, and make me instantly hard with just a little movement. I had to suppress myself from jumping her right then.

I took her dirty clothes and threw them next to her suitcase as I grabbed an old t-shirt of mine she liked to sleep in. As I walked back to the side of them bed Bella was at, I heard another little moan.

I smiled and kissed her lips softly, but then I felt Bella's hands travel into my hair, pulling me on top of her. I felt her smile and I knew right then that she was never really asleep. I smiled too and she unbuttoned my shirt, pushing it away and my hands undid my jeans and pushed them off.

I slid my hand around her back and lifted her up a little bit so I could drag her to the middle of the bed and she wrapped her legs around my waist. I groaned and set her down, my hands going down to her underwear. I pulled it off quickly and I groaned as I felt her hands on my boxers, pushing them down and brushing up against my hard member on their way down. I did the same thing to her and was rewarded by a similar sound.

I didn't want to tease her tonight and I knew she was ready for me, so I just plunged into her, not giving her time to get used to my size before I pulled almost all the way out and pounded into her again. I moaned and lifted her hips up to meet me every time.

I felt her tighten around me, not able to last long, and I lowered a hand so I could play with her clit a little bit. She instantly tightened and released. She shook for a minute and I came in her. She smiled and after I came down from my high, I rolled off her and kissed her cheek.

"I'll have to pretend to be asleep more often," Bella joked.

"I'll have to be horny more often, too," I joked back. Bella smiled and slapped my shoulder. I smiled and kissed my love. "Love you."

"I love you, too."

"Alice," Bella said, walking into the kitchen in front of me. I looked up at my sister and saw her eyes were rimmed in red, the purple bruises under her eyes were very pronounced too.

Alice picked up her head slowly from the bowl of cereal she was staring at on the island counter.

"I'm sorry," Bella said, walking up to her quickly and taking her into a big hug. "We should have told you, but I just couldn't do it." I nodded mutely in agreement.

"We know," Jasper said, startling me, over at the table. I walked over to Alice and hugged both girls together. I kissed Alice's forehead as I let go.

"I love you so much," Alice told me, looking up at me with tears filling her eyes. "I can't imagine a world without you."

Jasper had stood while she was talking and walked quickly over to us, placing his arms around Alice. I could see tears in his eyes. "It's not going to be the same," he said quietly.

"Nothing ever is," Bella said quietly next to me.

"And you're going to be having a baby!" Alice wailed. "And Edward's not going to be there!"

"Yes I am," I said. "I'm going to be alive for the first two months of our baby's life."

Alice let go of Jasper and hugged Bella and I again. "You two are so brave," she whispered. Bella just nodded and I stared ahead. I felt anything but brave. I was scared: more so than ever.

**Reviews are better than dramatic-Alice.**


	11. Fix You

**Disclaimer: I own nothing; it is all Stephanie.**

I waved out at a crying Alice and a stoic Jasper as we pulled out of their driveway, shopping bags filling my Volvo and an even bigger Bella filled the passenger seat. I looked over at her as we pulled off their street and onto the main road of the small development.

Bella was taking everything better now. It seemed like she came to terms with it that night, and after a week of comforting Alice, she was surprisingly okay. She didn't smile as much, but she was talking to me, telling me how she felt, and just talking. I half expected Bella to freeze into her own world, but she surprised me.

"Where to now?" She asked, turning the radio on. She flipped through channels until she found one she thought was okay. It was some Top 40 radio station. I sighed.

"Chicago," I told her honestly. I reached and turned the channels until it was a classical station and hit the memory button '2'.

"Wow, you're telling me where we are going," she said, her tone dry and sarcastic, as she turned it back to the Top 40 channel, hitting the memory button '3'. "I half expected you to just not answer."

I hit the '2' memory button. "I thought you might enjoy driving some," I said quietly, "it will be easier if you know where you are going."

She was quiet for a minute. We both know why she would have to drive, and not because she enjoyed it. I had been getting tired more easily in the last couple of days, and I didn't trust myself with driving a lot.

"'Kay, thanks for telling me." She hit the '3'.

Truthfully, we went to Chicago and we had fun looking around at the large buildings and we both loved the city, but there was always this gap between us. I was getting weaker still, and it was sooner than planned. I might not have all the months I has hoped for.

On our last day in Chicago, there was a silent agreement that we would head home today. We didn't need to see everything; I had seen everything I really wanted to see.

We headed on home- the end was in sight and that scared me half to death. No pun intended.

**No Reviews are worse than this chapter. Wow….that's bad…**


	12. If Today Was Your Last Day

**Disclaimer: I own nothing; it is all Stephanie.**

"HOME!" Bella squealed, jumping out of the car and waddling her way into our small house. I smiled and grabbed our bags out of the back of my silver Volvo and walked after her as she opened the front door and ran, as fast as a pregnant woman could, into the bathroom.

Littered on our front door set were pieces of paper saying we need to go to the post office to pick up our packages. I knew that everyone had been shopping for baby stuff, but I thought they meant like toys and stuff, but when I read the paper it said things like 'crib' and 'book shelf'. I sighed. Of course I wouldn't think about that. I was already a bad father and husband.

I kept making lists of things that needed to be done as I walked to our bedroom. I placed out bags down on the floor and went to lie down on my side of the bed. I was just so drained- I felt like I couldn't do anything but sleep, yet my mind was making lists and I couldn't stop it for a long enough period of time to go to sleep.

I heard Bella walked into our room what felt like hours after me, but was only about five minutes when I looked at the clock. She looked beautiful and swollen, halfway through her seventh month. I smiled and held my arms open for her and she happily jumped into them. She tucked her head beneath mine and I felt her slow, hot breath fan out on my neck.

"I want to freeze this moment forever," I whispered. She was silent for a long time- long enough that I thought she had gone to sleep.

"Yeah, me too," she whispered back. I smiled and kissed the top of her head and I finally got to sleep.

"Morning!" I heard Bella said happily. I looked over at the clock. Bella has been letting me sleep in, but I guess today we needed to get down to business and work on the nursery.

"Morning," I grumbled as I got up out of bed. She was looking even bigger, and the big eight month was coming up this week. She waddled ahead of me as we walked into the nursery which was across the hall from our room. We had already painted it a nice creamy yellow with some baby green accents- a gender neutral color palate was thought to be best.

"So I was thinking that today we could get all the furniture set up, maybe if we finish setting all of that up, we could hang up clothes in the closet. And then if we finish that, we need to go shopping for diapers, toys, and books," she read from the check list in her hand. I nodded and kissed her cheek as I went over and started working on the crib.

I had to ask for Bella's help a lot, which I hated since she was so big and couldn't even bend down anymore, but we finished the crib, changing table, and book shelf by three. Bella started hanging up the baby's clothes and I started helping her, looking at all the onsies and outfits Alice had been sending to out house.

About an hour later we finished up with the clothes and we made our way to the grocery store.

"We still need to think of names," Bella said suddenly. I smiled and nodded, remembering the names I had been thinking of. "What do you think would be a good boy name?" she asked.

"I think Luke is a good boy name," I said and Bella nodded, a smile on her lips. I loved it when she smiled- it seemed so rare now, sadly. Her whole face lit up the whole car with that tiny little grin she got when we thought about baby names and when we faught about what we thought the gender would be.

"I like that name. I also like Simon and Daniel. James Edward doesn't sound half bad either," Bella suggested. I wrinkled my nose at her suggestion of James Edward. "What?" Bella asked, her voice getting louder as she looked at my scrunched up face.

"Well, I just don't like James Edward. I like James, but not James Edward. How about Simon James," I said. Bella sighed.

"Then we don't use Luke," she sighed. I laughed at her suggestion; I loved that she wanted to include me, but she usually fought me to the death about getting her way with names or something similar, and now suddenly she wants to include me in everything.

"Luke doesn't sound good with Simon or Daniel or James," I told her. She sighed and was silent for a minute.

"No, Luke Daniel sounds perfect," she said. I laughed at her suggestion again.

"Luke Daniel sounds like Jack Daniel," I said. Bella was quiet for a minute and I took my eyes off the road for a minute to see if I had offended her, but saw her face was smiling and she was silently giggling.

"I think that's perfect! We need a kid who we can call Jack jokingly. It can be like our own inside joke!" She laughed and I just shook my head. Of course she would make a joke out of our son's name.

"We should think of girl names now," I said, trying to get the serious Bella back. She shrugged. "I like Lina."

"And I like a bunch of names. I like Isolde, but she would probably be made fun of at school. It's not a very popular name," Bella said and I just nodded along. "And I like Kierra."

"Hey, how about Kierra Isolde, that sounds pretty," I said happily. Bella shook her head.

"No, how about Kierra Lina?" she suggested. I nodded. The way she said that name, it sounded so pretty and so fluid.

"What about that being one word? She could be Kierralina Isolde. We can fit everything in one name," I said as we turned into the grocery store parking lot. Bella shook her head again.

"No, if we give her a long name like that, which I like Kierralina being one word, I don't think we should give her a middle name. That's too much," I nodded and got out of the car.

I quickly walked over to Bella's side and opened her door while she wrestled with the seat belt for a minute, the lock on the seat belt net letting her strech it anymore across her stomach so she could get it off. I smiled and helped her out of that mess, and then I helped her get out fo the car- which probably took around five minutes; she was just so big.

"I can't wait until this is over," she sighed and I nodded. I grabbed her hand and together we made our way into Toy R Us. I sighed and watched all the little kids run around and grab toys, begging their parents and telling them that they _had to have_ this ball.

Bella and I walked over to the diapers and we spend a good twenty minutes looking at all the labels, finally deciding on the ones that said they were the most comfortable. It said they were tested in their comfortable-ness. I didn't get how they tested really; did they just put a bunch of diapers on a bunch of babies and which one didn't cry as much was declared the winner? I just didn't understand this.

We walked over to the toys and we spent another twenty minutes looking at strollers and carriers and car seats. We got one of each, and neither of us really knew what we were looking for. We kinda just picked the one that looked the best…whether it is the best is debatable I guess…

"What are you thinking about?" Bella asked as we stood in line behind another pregnant couple that also how a little three year old running around their feet. I pushed some of the boxes forward in line when it moved up. I couldn't even see over the boxes- they were stacked on top of each other.

"Nothing much- just thinking about how heavy these boxes are," I laughed and Bella looked down at the box of diapers she was carrying.

"I could help-"

"No, you have the diapers, you are fine. I'm fine, too," I told her, kissing her forehead and pushed the boxes some more as we neared the front of the line. The three year old in front of us threw a fit because his parents didn't buy him the stuffed lion he wanted. I sighed.

**Reviews are better than getting that pony you wanted when you were five. **


	13. Dark Blue

**Disclaimer: I own nothing; it is all Stephanie. **

"I wish we could take the Toy R Us guys home with us," I joked as I lifted the stroller out of the back of the car. I didn't even get how they fit all of our stuff in the car- but they are magic and they made it happen. Bella had the diapers still in her lap and she waddled quickly to the front door and opened it for me, clearing a path to the nursery.

I didn't even make it to the front door when I felt weak- it was like a vacuum was sucking the energy out of me- and I couldn't stand up anymore. I staggered a couple more feet before dropping the stroller. I hope I didn't hurt it.

"Your family is here," Bella said as I blinked my eyes open after my nap. I looked up and saw the whole gang standing in the doorway of our hospital room. I sighed.

"You guys shouldn't have come," I told them, rubbing my eyes and looking up at the ceiling. I had fainted and the doctor said the stress of the baby was making me stressed out, which in turn didn't help my physical state of being. It was making the disease move faster.

"Yes, we should," my mother scolded as she walked into the room, setting her purse down at a chair by my bed and walking to my side to grab my hand. Everyone else seemed to follow her lead, slowly trickling into the room.

"Bella's about to give birth and we have to be here for that!" Alice said happily, walking over to Bella to rub her stomach. I smiled at Bella who had large bags under her eyes from exhaustion. She hadn't been getting much sleep because she couldn't get comfortable in the hospital chair/beds. I told her to go home but she wouldn't have any of it.

The girls seemed to gush about the baby, how big Bella's stomach had gotten and such. The guys smiled and nodded, but Carlisle seemed to stay at the edge of the pack. I could see the bags under his eyes to. He had worry lines now and his hair wasn't in its usual slicked-back fashion. Nobody was really paying attention to him, but me, and he looked at everyone for a minute and then looked back at the door over his shoulder before grabbing my chart quickly.

His eyes glanced over it and he let out some air from his nose that I didn't know he was holding. He placed the chart back quickly ad walked over to a chair to sit down. I didn't need to be a mind reader to know that Carlisle was stressed and worried, and that chart didn't make matters any better. Nobody seemed to notice him, though. Nobody but me.

"Look at this nursery!" Esme squealed as we walked into the small room, showing everyone what we had done. In the living room, Carlisle, Emmett, and Jasper were assembling the stroller and the carrier, refusing my attempts to help.

"Oh!" Alice squealed as she rushed into the room. "We haven't even discussed names!" she exclaimed, sounding happy and light talking about the baby. I guess it's easier to think about bringing a life into the world than one being taken out.

I had been released from the hospital yesterday, a couple days after I had been admitted in. The doctors said I just needed to be careful and not stress out so much- haha, fat chance- and that I needed to stay more hydrated because lots of fluids could only help me now.

"We have picked out a girl and a boy name; Kierralina if it's a girl, Luke Daniel if it's a boy," Bella smiled, taking my hand and pulling me with her into the room. I smiled and poked her stomach, making the baby kick back.

That was my new found favorite game- poking her stomach. The baby would always poke back, as if he or she knew that I loved this game and wanted to play it with me. I loved our child already so much.

"Well I think you need some more diapers, so I'm gonna go to the store to buy some more," Rosalie said, briskly walking out of the room. Alice followed behind and Esme left with them too, saying that both of them had no idea what to look for in diapers.

**Reviews are better than Jack Daniel's. **


	14. The Heart of Life

**Disclaimer: I own nothing; this is all Stephanie's.**

"I want to sleep some more," Bella grumbled, rolling over again, "but it is impossible to get comfortable!" she growled. She threw the covers off and got out of bed, stumbling a little, and stomping out of the room. I just shook my head and looked at the clock- 11:15 PM. She was not going to last very long tomorrow with her temper.

I quickly went back to sleep, only to be woken up at 11:30 by screaming. I jumped out of bed and rushed into the kitchen where I found Bella on the floor, a bunch of water under her. I screamed, too and Bella squeezed her eyes such, clutching her stomach in pain. I ran back into the room and grabbed the overnight hospital bag and ran back into the kitchen, already sweating and breathing hard.

"Call your parents," Bella said when she reopened her eyes. She looked tired from the lack of sleep tonight and the stress she was feeling was obvious on her face. I nodded and grabbed her off the floor.

"We need to get you to the hospital first," I managed to say even though my mind was moving at a million miles per hour, making it hard for me to concentrate on something as minute as, say talking.

Within the hour, we were settled in the delivery room, my family had showed up, and Bella was working on her breathing, getting ready for birth. I just hoped those take-home video birthing classes really worked. And I hoped Bella wouldn't bite my head off like the wives usually do in the movies.

It turns out that movies dramatize things. Bella only screamed at me once when she had to push and I was just nicely encouraging her to push harder while smiling for the camera I had. She screamed at me to get the "fucking camera" out of her "fucking face". It wasn't a very family-friendly video.

I smiled at the little pink bundle in Bella's arms. Bella had her first breast feeding lesson, and now that little Kierralina was happy, fed and napping, the family was allowed to come in and see her.

Little 'Lina had the prettiest red curls and blue-green eyes but the doctor said that her eyes will probably turn a green color by the time she's six months old. When I heard that I felt my stomach drop. I would never see my baby's eye color. Just nothing list of things I would never get to see. But I tried to not focus on the negative, because, well, I'm a DAD!

Bella saw me grinning and her tired eyes brightened a little more and she lifted Kierralina up to me. I gladly took her gently, holding her the way we had been taught, and I was careful not to wake her. She was a light sleeper because she immediately woke up and started crying. I panicked and looked up at Bella who wore the same scared face. We had never made her cry before.

I rocked her gently in my arms, humming and trying to sooth her. She slowly quieted and by the time my family walked through the door, she was silent. I looked over at Bella and saw she had tears in her eyes.

"I wish my parents could see this," she whispered and I smiled the best I could and kissed her forehead.

"They would be so proud of you, love," I told her. Alice was quickly by my side.

"Everyone," I started softly, "meet the newest Cullen, Kierralina Cullen. She would say hello, but she just got done crying and is kind of tired."

Alice ran a finger down Kierralina's tiny arm, running it down to her hand. Kierralina grabbed her hand held on with her weak grip and Alice smiled up at me.

"She already loves her aunt," Bella smiled from the bed. After everyone got a chance to look at our beautiful baby girl, they decided to let us get our rest. I was so happy to finally be able to be with my family, just us.

We had to give Kierralina back to be watched over night, because no matter that she was only about two weeks early, they wanted to keep an eye on her. So Bella and I had the night to ourselves.

"I want a shower," Bella said, straining to keep her eyes open.

"No, you should sleep," I told her, running a hand over her forehead and into her hair that had a weird texture because of the dried sweat in it. I tried not to laugh at her expression when my hand got stuck in her hair.

"I won't be able to sleep like this- help me out of bed and into the bathroom," she said and I didn't have any time to say anything because she was already trying to get out of bed. She was extremely sore- that much was obvious. She walked like she had a watermelon in between her knees, and winced when she had to take off her hospital gown as I turned on a nice warm bath for her.

"Need help?" I asked and she nodded. I help her carefully get into the tub and sit in the water without falling and then she just laid there- totally content with not moving. I smiled and lay down next to the tub with my head resting on the side. After a minute I felt her wet hand running through my hair, she must have thought I was asleep because she didn't ask me to move or anything. We just laid together like that for what seemed like forever.

"I will miss you so much," I heard her whisper. I didn't move. "I don't want you to ever leave me," she said and I could hear her voice crack. Suddenly she kissed my forehead and shook me "awake".

"I need help getting out of the tub," she said and I could see that he face was wet with more than just tub water.

**Reviews are better than…I have nothing but I do have a joke about the name I picked out for their child: Kierralina Cullen, even Reneesme and Albus Severus are laughing. **


	15. Silvering

**Disclaimer: I own nothing; it is all Stephanie.**

"It's your turn," Bella mumbled to me. I sighed and nodded, getting out of bed slowly to meet our crying baby in the next room. She had woken up about an hour ago and Bella fed her, so she must need to be changed.

I slowly dragged my feet to her room and saw her fussing in her crib, her face contorted and her screaming only getting louder. I carefully picked her up and placed her on the changing table, cooing and talking to her, trying to sooth her.

After I changed her she stopped crying and I sang her to sleep, finally able to put her back in her crib. But as soon as I set her down, she started crying again. She did this often- cried if you put her down. I thought it was something toddlers did, but no, Kierralina learned it at an earlier age.

I picked her back up and cradled her in my arms and walked to the kitchen, turning on the coffee machine. I flipped on the TV in the living room and turned it to subtitles so I could watch some TV until Kierralina was in a deep sleep.

I heard the soft beeping of the coffee machine when it signaled it was done and I slowly and gently got up to pour myself a cup. I only filled it half way and filled the rest with milk so I wouldn't stay up the other half of the nigh and walked back into the living room, baby in one arm, cup of coffee in the other. If you can't tell, this is an almost nightly ritual since we brought Kierralina home a month ago.

I felt drained from all those night of no sleep and I drank the rest of my coffee in one large, hot gulp and got up to place the cup on the bar the stood between our kitchen and our living room. I went back and settled into the couch, placing Kierralina in my arms on my stomach and I just couldn't keep my eyes open, and I felt sore all over and my back was killing me and I just felt weak all over. That's why I couldn't keep my eyes open.

"I don't know what happened," I heard Bella's voice say softly. "He has been doing so great since that last scare, and I thought he was better, b-but this morning I j-just found him passed out on the c-cou-couch with K-Kierralina in his arms," Bella was beyond hysterical now, she was sobbing and I could barely make out the words she was saying. "He w-wouldn't wake up, I was so s-s-sc-scared!"

"He should be waking up soon, and I think the disease is just moving faster because of the stress and lack of sleep," I heard a calm voice that only a doctor could pull off while telling someone their husband is dieing. I also heard another one of Bella's sobs.

"H-How long?" Bella asked. I didn't hear the doctor's response because the door burst open.

"What happened?" I heard Esme asked her voice wild. I wondered why Kierralina wasn't screaming with all the yelling that was happening. I heard more footsteps and some more people asking what happened.

The doctor said goodbye and left Bella with the family, so I decided to open my eyes. I blinked- the room was so bright. I saw Bella, Esme, Carlisle, Emmett, and Rosalie all standing around my bed and everyone was watching Bella.

"Edward?" Bella asked, rushing to my side. I smiled the best I could at her and she collapsed onto me, hugging me tightly against her.

"Is Kierralina okay?" I asked. I felt Bella nodded.

"Alice and Jasper are looking after her in the hall."

I looked up at my family and saw their faces- a mixture of sadness and confusion.

"What happened?" Rosalie finally asked. Bella lifted her head and retold the story to them. Carlisle looked at my chart again; his face looked even sadder and more depressed this time. And he didn't try to hide it.

"The doctor said you won't be allowed to leave now," Bella told me while everyone else went to the cafeteria to get some lunch. Alice and Jasper had come and given Kierralina back so she could drink something besides bottle milk.

I didn't need to ask why the doctors wanted to keep me, I just nodded. "Can you bring me my camera and some DVD's and my laptop?" I asked. She nodded, knowing what I wanted to do; I needed to make those DVD's about our trip for our daughter.

**No reviews are worse than having to wake up twice a night for your newborn baby.**


	16. Dreaming With A Broken Heart

**Disclaimer: I own nothing; it is all Stephanie.**

**BPOV:**

"You should clean this cup too," Alice said, placing the coffee mug down next to the sink where I was doing the dishes. I took a sideways glace at it and immediately decided that it wouldn't be washed. I shook my head.

"What?" Rosalie asked, helping with the dishes. I quickly grabbed a towel, dried off my hands and placed the cup back where it was, by the coffee maker. I felt the aching feeling build up in my chest, the stinging feeling behind my eyes, my legs and arms freezing up, not being able to move with me thinking about them.

I felt Alice's small arms wrap around me and direct me towards a chair. "I'm sorry sweetie, we didn't know. It's okay," she soothed me, rubbing my back. I heard Kierralina start to cry from the baby monitor.

I shrugged off her arms and went to comfort my baby. I cradled her and she quickly fell asleep. I tried to put her back down, but she just started to fuss again. I groaned and picked her up, immediately silencing her tears.

I felt my own tears come up from a variety of things: I had gotten ten hours of sleep from the past five days. Between classes, homework, the baby, and Edward I had no time. I also felt realization and stress creeping up on me; I had to raise this baby by myself. This is how it's going to be from now on, me and her. No one else here to take turns with changing diapers, it was always going to be me.

I was not near tears anymore; I was full on sobbing now. Alice came in quickly, taking Kierralina away from me, rocking her to keep her from fussing and she walked out of the room. Rosalie came in next and guided me from my spot in the middle of Lina's room to my master bedroom across the hall and to my bed. She helped me lay down and sat beside me, rubbing my back.

"I can't do it alone. It's just not fair," I sobbed.

I was sitting next to him, reading. He had finished editing a long time ago so now he spent most of his time sleeping, talking, or holding Kierralina. I loved him to no end and would stay here for as long as he was here, but it was hurting me. It was hurting Kierralina, too. I couldn't watch the man I loved die everyday, and Kierralina was having trouble sleeping because she was in such a bad atmosphere.

"Hey," he croaked. I set my book down and grabbed his hand. "How's our baby?" He asked, looking around the room.

"Auntie Alice was nice enough to take her for a walk around the hospital. She was getting restless and I was too so I just wouldn't do for the job," I said, smiling at him to show him there was nothing to worry about. He frowned a little and so I kissed his hand.

"You guys need to leave. It's doing no good for you to be here," he said, stilling frowning.

**Reviews are better than going back to EPOV. **


	17. Show Me What I'm Looking For

**Disclaimer: I own nothing; it is all Stephanie's.**

**EPOV**

I frowned at her. They were killing themselves staying here. I couldn't keep them. I had to let go, and the sooner the better. I didn't want for her to see me die.

"You guys need to leave. It's doing no good for you to be here," I said firmly.

"You aren't getting rid of us. We love you to no end and we are going to stay," she said. I sighed and looked out the window by my bed. It gave me a perfect view of the houses being built across the road. They were still just in the foundation stage, but they looked like they were going to be great houses for the new families.

"Please. I don't want you to see me die," I said, not looking at her face but still out the window. I could feel her tighten up beside me.

"No," she said simply. I could tell she was getting mad, but I was extremely drained just from our conversation. I loved talking to her, but if I gave her hand a simple squeeze, I would be tired. The must mundane tasks now took the most effort. "Go to sleep. I can tell you're tired. We are not having this conversation again, either. I love you and we are staying," she said. I swear she could read my mind. She leaned forward and kissed my forehead, and then she kissed my lips softly. "I love you."

"Promise me, that you try your best to be happy," I said, determined. She sighed and ran a hand over her face. Her beautiful features on her face were contorted, tears threatening to spill over. "Please, just promise me."

She took a deep breath and nodded.

I was satisfied with that answer, knowing I wouldn't get her to be really happy until she didn't have to spend all her time in a hospital, waiting for me to die. I could tell she loved me and didn't want me to leave, but I hope she has gotten closure.

As for me, I didn't really have much say in the matter. I guess I will get to talk it up with the big guy upstairs soon enough. I want to see my baby grow, I want to have more children with my beautiful wife, and most importantly I want to grow old with Bella. But life has different plans.

"I know I just woke up," I smiled, hearing how strained and ugly my voice was and how hard it was just to say the simplest of sentences. Bella squeezed my hand reassuringly. "But I'm really tired," I laughed, my laugh sounding more like a cough. Bella kissed my hand.

"I know, go to sleep," she told me. I nodded.

"Kierralina, stop fussing. Please stop fussing. I love you, I love you, I love you," Bella repeated to our child. I still had my eyes closed, but I could hear Bella walking around the room, shushing Lina while she cried softly. I love my baby. She was already so smart. She seemed to know that she was in a hospital and couldn't scream. She just whined or fussed.

I opened my eyes slowly to see that it was dark out and that Bella was standing by the window. I saw the bottle sitting on the ledge, and Lina's pacifier was sitting next to it.

"Lina," I whispered my voice not able to go any louder. Bella quickly turned around and saw me.

"We're sorry. We didn't mean to wake you," Bella said, still rocking Lina. "Kierralina is just having trouble sleeping. She won't stop fussing."

"Come here Lina," I said and I pushed the button next to my bed to prop it up right. Once the bed was up, I held out my arms. I felt drained already, but I wanted to hold my baby girl.

Bella looked skeptical, but slowly handed me our baby anyway. She made sure I had her securely in my arms before taking her hands off Lina.

"My Lina," I said softly and she quieted down, looking up at me with her wonderful green eyes. "Ma belle petite fille," I sighed, and I kissed her forehead softly. She was quiet and looked up at me, a slight smile in her wonderful green eyes. She was already starting to look like her mother. I know that most babies come out looking like little porkers, with fat cheeks and chubby hands, but she was already showing the signs of a heart shaped face and she had some gorgeous dark brown hair growing.

"I like that nickname," Bella said softly. I smiled up at her. "Lina. I will have to tell her when she gets older that her dad always called her 'my Lina.'"

"I think you should call her that, it rolls off the tongue," I said and I smiled back at her.

"No, it's your nickname for her. I'll call her Kierra. She needs to have something special for her to hang on to that was special that only her and her dad shared," she said. She turned and looked out the window. I could see her in the reflection of the window. She had tears streaming down her face, her hair tied up in a messy pony tail, sweats on. She was a mess. But I knew that she was going to be fine. She had finally accepted that I was as good as gone.

"You better take her back, I'm feeling weak," I said softly. She quickly turned around and grabbed Lina from my arms. "I love you," I told her. She just smiled weakly back at me, tears coming down again.

I grabbed one of her hands, pulling her down to me and kissed her softly. Our lips were locked in a sweet, passionate, yet slow kiss. She moaned a little from the passion we hadn't been able to give each other in a while. I let my hand run up her face, cupping her cheek. We slowly stopped, and I gave her a couple pecks and then let her go. She stood up straight, the baby still cradled in her arms.

"I love you," I told Lina, kissing her forehead. She didn't stir from her sleep.

"Je t'aime," Bella told me, sitting down on the chair right in front of the window. I could see the tears running down her face. She smiled at me, as if telling me everything was okay, but I could tell she didn't really feel that way.

"Je t'aime," I smiled back at her. I was so tired, yet I didn't want to go to sleep. I felt a subconscious pull towards sleeping, yet my conscious thoughts were screaming at me to stay awake. I tried my best to stay awake, I really did.

**Reviews are better than this story ending. **


	18. Thinking of You

**Disclaimer: I own nothing; it is all Stephanie's. **

I was just showing her a video on her eighteenth birthday, happy to see it. I didn't know which occasions he put with each birthday or some other holiday, he just had them in a box, in the order for me to show them to her, and they had little labels on them, such as '18th birthday' was on this one, along with a surprise: an envelope.

I was showing Kierralina Cullen her father again. The whole family was gathered around my modest TV, the video tape just starting. I had my tissue box and was ready for the waterworks.

"Kierralina, I have something else besides the video to give you," I started off. I handed her the envelope with a letter Edward had written for her when he was still alive. I had never seen the letter, so I was just as eager as her to see what was inside.

To: My loveliest daughter, Kierralina, on her 18th Birthday

From: Her loving father

She opened it slowly, pulling out its contents carefully. She got the letter and opened it up, reading what it said slowly so not to miss a word.

Dear Sweetheart,

I know you must hear this story a lot, but I wanted to write one for you so you would never forget that I love you. I'm making some videos of The Trip, again, so you don't forget how much I love you even though I have to miss most of your life. You don't know how sad it makes me that I can't be there, and never for a second think that I didn't love you. I still love you as a matter a fact. Keep up with your studies for the rest of the year, and I don't know if you plan on attending any college, but if you do, I wish you the best of luck and hope you are the best at whatever you try. I support you, and wish I could be there for you everyday. It pains me to say this, but see you soon.

Love,

Your Father (Edward Cullen, in case you forgot.)

After all of us read the letter, I popped in the video and sat back down next to my daughter.

I began like it usually did- with a cheesy intro he made on his computer when he was bored in the hospital. It had a bunch of two second segments of other videos with him saying, "It's your dad!" and then you would hear me say "And your mom!" while laughing. I remembered him asking me to say that one day, out of the blue, and not telling me what he was using it for.

I sniffed and grabbed a tissue after reliving the memory. You would think after seeing the intro a hundred times, I would get used to it. Well, I had yet to really get used to the fact that he was gone.

The video started and it was the one we made in Disney World.

"Hey kiddo!" He said in his happy voice. "We're at DISNEY WORLD!" He said excitedly. The scene jumped to one of us riding a roller coaster. We were going down a large drop. Then it switched to us on the tea cups, spinning around crazily. Then it switched to me throwing up. Everyone started to laugh and I did too, and tried to glare at the TV, but it was hard to laugh, glare, and cry at the same time.

"Fun, huh?" It switched to Edward in the bedroom we stayed at. "Mom's in the bathroom showering, so I have to be quick on this! I wonder if mom has ever taken you here yet…. I hope not, because if you're Bella and my daughter, then you did wonderful this year. Graduating, getting into a wonderful college, all those things. So I think you deserve a vacation. I'm giving you a trip to Disney World with your mom and two more people," he said. I smiled and felt even more tears well up.

"This message is to Bella: if Kierralina decides to take a boy, that happens to be a friend, I do not want them to be in the same room!

"And now that my baby is turning 18, she will be getting serious about guys. I know, I know Lina, boys are gross creatures that have coodies, but they will soon change," he joked in a sarcastic voice. "But, I want Emmett, Jasper, and Carlisle to take my place… every boy that you get serious about must go threw all three of them. Emmett, you better beat away any boy that is less than par." Edward was joking, that much was evident, but I could tell by his voice cracking that he was miserable that he would miss it.

"Edward! I need a towel," I heard myself whine from outside the camera range.

"Then come out and get one!" Edward yelled back, laughing and looking towards the right to what I guessed was the direction of the bathroom.

"No!" I yelled back stubbornly. Edward just smiled and shook his head. After a minute we heard a door open and me stomping around to get a towel. "What are you doing?" I asked from camera and we all saw me walking into the camera frame with just a towel on, my hair wet and dangling around my shoulders.

"Nothing, just filming," Edward said casually. I screamed and jumped out of the frame. The whole room was laughing hysterically. I groaned and felt Emmett's hand on my back. I wiped my nose on the tissue and Emmett grabbed me into a big bear hug. I could feel his chest rising and falling rapidly from laughing.

"Well, I gotta go," Edward said. I turned to look at the TV. "Love you with all my heart," he said and he blew a kiss at the computer before turning it off.

The room was silent and I looked at Kierralina and she was smiling up at me. I wiped my eyes and nose and then went around the couch to hug her. I felt her sniff and then I heard her start to cry. I just patted her back and hugged her even tighter.

"I love you, and I know for more than a fact that he loves you," I told her quietly and then kissed the side of her head.

"I wish he could be here for everything," she cried, sobbing now. This happens almost every video; you'd think we would get used to them. "I mean, I didn't even know him. I shouldn't be this sad. I've had three dads, I should be thankful."

I just patted her back but soon she pushed out of my grasp. "Honey, you have had to go through life without a father, it's hard," I said simply.

"It's not fair. I need him, I want him," she said, wiping away tears only to have them be replaced by more tears.

"You sound like me," I laughed even though it wasn't funny. I looked around the room to see them looking at us with concerned expressions on their faces. Emmett placed a hand on my shoulder comfortingly. I wished that hand was Edward's. I wished we were some normal family that had fights all the time about where she was allowed to go to college, not me against her. I wanted to be able to ask someone what they thought about things.

But at the same time I knew that things would never be that way. I just had to deal. I lost my Edward, and in turn I got a beautiful daughter with his deep green eyes, and my brown hair and heart shaped face, with his pale skin. She was beautiful.

"Je t'aime, ma mère," she told me. "Et j'aime mon père." I smiled, and nodded my head.

"J'aime ton père aussi," I told her.

**Thanks everyone who read this story! I hope you enjoyed all my short chapters and I hope you liked what I did with Edward: I made him more human. Well, maybe not totally realistic, but closer than Stephanie's Edward. ******** See you for my next story…hopefully!**


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